Neighborhood Conflict

Neighborhood Conflict is a meditation on the nature of urban street life and the perception of its spaces through the collision of public record and personal truth. Through radio transmission, we hear a young man from the South Side of Chicago on the brink of adulthood as he navigates his neighborhood, family and friends and deals with the death of a classmate. However, his story is intermittently suppressed by the live police radio in the same neighborhood where his story is set, a neighborhood that is stigmatized by the media as a war zone. This sometimes-constant interruption highlights contemporary struggles that include ownership over representation in disenfranchised communities, the rift between the police and young men of color, and the relationship of internal life and external reality. At times, this flow of information overwhelms listeners and mangles their sense of space. In doing so, Neighborhood Conflict confronts our assumptions about objectivity regarding the South Side of Chicago – and by proxy any neighborhood that has been stigmatized by the media – by questioning the neutrality of these accounts.

Radio has always been a way to effectively transmit information. Whether we turn it on to listen to music, check the weather or traffic, or to listen to stories, it is a format that is easily accessible. Listeners can tune in from home, in the office, in the car, and on the street: virtually anywhere at any time. Using this democratic medium brings the ephemerality of this convergence not just to the gallery but also to the street. This transitory artifact tells the story of a young man negotiating his neighborhood and complicated times.