Sidewalk Ens
2021-2023. 24 Printed photographs of altered sidewalk pieces, taken and returned to All Saints, Tallahassee, FL.
This project features printed photographs of altered sidewalk pieces, taken and returned to All Saints, Tallahassee, FL. After engaging with and recording the words of many unhoused individuals in the area, I painted their quotes onto fragments of sidewalk—symbolic pieces of their displaced community and their makeshift homes. These painted sidewalk pieces were reinstalled in the gentrified neighborhood from which they had been displaced, serving as haunting reminders of their absence and the erasure of their presence. The project highlights the stark contrast between the lives of the unhoused and the evolving urban landscape.
Sidewalk Ens came about as a physical manifestation of a conceptual work, Today My Houseless Friend Told Me, in which I performed as a street therapist for an entire year (2021-2022). I found fragments of sidewalk uprooted in All Saints, Tallahassee, an area undergoing gentrification. I painted quotes from the social practice piece onto each fragment, before relocating them to various sites around All Saints. Some fragments disappear in the photos, while others are hypervisible. Displaced and ephemeral, Sidewalk Ens recalls the unhoused experience in which one's existence is constantly questioned by others; or, it becomes synonymous with the urban environment.