2025 SPE Annual Conference: Adaptations
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print this pageCultural History-Evolution of Neighborhoods in the Washington, D.C. Metro Area
Saturday, October 29 - 3:00PM to 3:45PM
My artwork that examines the cultural history of neighborhoods in the Washington, D.C. area. My photo-collages blend historic newspapers, maps, and other memorabilia with archival and contemporary photographs. Text is integrated into the work. The artwork evolves from research using primary and secondary sources. The impact of the past on the present is palpable. The layers of various opacities are intended to convey a fluid sense of time and place.
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These photo-collages are not nostalgic. Rather, I tell an often untold story of daily life, highlighting changing societal values and desires. For example, government actions to alter the racial and ethnic composition of neighborhoods through land acquisition for a park, public schools, and redevelopment, are demonstrated. My recent public art 6x17 foot site-specific piece illustrates land use at that site: moving from agricultural to industrial to urban decay to a contemporary office building.
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I have partnered with various organizations including Iona Senior Services, American University Art Museum, Washington Project for the Arts, Art All Night, and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. The work has been exhibited as public art in an office lobby, neighborhood arts festivals, and for three years in a vacant building. As an artist-in residence at the Sandy Spring Museum I am extensively using their collection to create work examining the cultural history of this recently rural, now suburban community. The resulting photo-collages will be exhibited at the museum and as public art. I am also working on a site-specific commission for an approximately 8-feet high photo-collage running along a construction fence surrounding the vacated Walter Reed Army Hospital property.
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My artwork reflects this region's history and is emblematic of shifting land use in many areas throughout the country. Presenting this work in a public art context brings local history to residents and passersby in an accessible manner. When exhibited in a museum context, viewers think about parallels with their own neighborhoods.
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