The Welcome To The NeighborHOOD project shows us how youth are part of the environmental and social justice movement in the Bayview/Hunters Point neighborhood of San Francisco. They have been working with artists to explore the issues in their neighborhood in order to present them to their community and beyond.
Wendy Testu -Filming, Editing, Project Creator, Multimedia Artist
Monica Jensen - Photographer
Keba Armand Konte - Lead Artist
Literacy For Environmental Justice (LEJ) -Community Partner
This video is a behind the scenes look at the work the youth have created with one of the artists, Keba Armand Konte. He spent eight weeks with six youth from the non-profit Literacy For Environmental Justice (LEJ) in order to create this work. LEJ has been in the community for over ten years and has worked with youth and community members to get the PG&E Power Plant shut down. They accomplished this in 2006. Currently LEJ is building the EcoCenter next to the former PG&E site. The EcoCenter will be San Franciscos first %100 of-the-grid public building and an environmental education center. The community is also dealing with re-development and gentrification issues. The housing developer, Lennar, is building 10,000 housing units on top of a Super Fund site (one of the worst toxic waste sites in the country).
Keba and the youth began by engaging in conversations about the various topics that concern them and the experiences theyve had with those topics. A long list of themes was created and by a process of elimination they chose the theme of gentrification.
A photographic tour of the neighborhood produced images of symbols and objects that represented their theme. These images and the work the youth created reflect and explore local issues. Their materials were gathered in the neighborhood to use for their assemblage and to try out the multiple new techniques they explored,
such as: 'project and effect, photo transfer & scrubbing. The final installation incorporated; found objects, drawings, signs & photo transfers. They created a modular 8 x 12 ft., multi-media piece about the gentrification happening in their neighborhood. The title A Stroll down Gentrification Lane.
This is a cut of just one small piece of a two year community engagement project by Wendy Testu to document the entire Welcome To The NeighborHOOD project; A collaboration with six artists and 16 youth from the non-profit Literacy For Environmental Justice. This video piece has been shown in several gallery exhibits next to the actual art pieces that were created by the youth. Visitors to these exhibitions were encouraged to contribute their thoughts about their communitys by writing on The Wall for Public Comment and in the Community Journal. These comments have been included in the Welcome To The NeighborHOOD book volume #2.
Soon this cut will be reworked with the other segments into a full-length documentary film. A documentary photo book is available on line:
http://www.blurb.com/my/book/detail/1206220
Stay Tuned for more...
This project has been made possible with the generous support from:
The San Francisco Arts Commission
The LEF Foundation
The Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation
The San Francisco Foundations-Koshland Program
T-Mobile
Motorola
Literacy For Environmental Justice
The EcoCenter
The African American Arts And Culture Complex; Sargent Johnson Gallery
ART 94124 Gallery
Zeum: San Francisco's Children's Museum
And many generous volunteers
Thank you, each and every one of you
For more information, please visit:
The Project: http://welcometotheneighborhood.us/
Literacy For Environmental Justice: http://lejyouth.org/
Loading...
5:01
Welcome To The NeighborHOOD -top 10 finalist for EPA's 'Faces Of The Grassroots' video contestby wendytestu1,387 views
Great video, this is exactly what I was trying to do. Make a documentary of how gentrification is affecting Bayview-Hunter's Point, but looks like someone already beat me to it. Great job.
BayviewHuntersPoint 1 year ago
This is great. I live in H.P and love the community, but hate how its goin through gentrification. I'm glad yall made this to make people more aware of this situation occurring in the Bayview-Hunter's Point area.
Soulja4islam 1 year ago