An African American woman lives in a women's residence in a posh New York City neighborhood. Every resident in her building had access to the last private park in Manhattan, which was across the street. She was never racially profiled because the average onlooker likely thought she was a housekeeper, nanny or caregiver. She discovered a tragic and ironic freedom in living like this. The structure is now a fancy condo.
I mixed archival photographs and raw footage captured with my smartphone in order to provoke memory of a particular place that poses tensions with other places when I have found myself the "other."
As a woman of color, I have discovered being easily narrated and/or the only one, or one of a few who look like you, lessens the threat you pose to the dominant culture.
Further Reading: Sharony Green, “When I First Wore Fish Leather, Or Black Girl in Iceland,” Pan African Spaces: Essays on Black Transnationalism, Msia K. Clark, Phiwokuhle W. Mnyandu, and Loy Azalia, eds. (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019)