Reflection

We felt that given the amount of time for the project, we managed to explore the rather complicated history and resources available, which allowed us to create something tangible. We really like the suggestion during the review that it could become a marker for Lower Hill, just like the neighborhood signs/gateways in Uptown by James Simon, especially since the site we chose is on the edge of Lower Hill and Downtown. 

Some of the questions we still need to address is if the design we came up with is feasible for implementation for the community and if the entire community would feel comfortable with the design. What the community would want if we were to move forward with the design, even though we talked with Terri Baltimore, we would want to talk to more community members about the idea to gather their thoughts! Since the design would be placed in the community and we believe the community, especially for this type of project, could be very interested and involved. A couple other question are how we would install our project and the viability of having lights out in the open either embedded in the concrete or hanging over the parking lot? How much work should the installation ideally involve, in terms of designing, implementing and installing? 

In the future, we would potentially try to do more ethnographic research and visit the space more often so that we would be able to get a very high understanding of it. Consider how difficult it is to represent memories that happened 30 or more years ago, and augment/re-create them so that they are powerful. Maybe at some point, we will be able to re-create past memories and feelings, so that when people in the present experience them they feel the emotional impact and understand why individuals reacted the way they did. One question would be: How to recollect the feeling of talking to an individual who has had a lot of experiences in their life, and how to recreate the feeling you felt while talking to them and have the impression resonate within you.

 We also would need to put more thought into cost and implementation, and see what would be the most realistic and practical approach. Another thing to focus on would be how the community members value the memories and how they feel comfortable expressing them? In general just getting to know the community better and trying to understand their struggles, and involving them would help bring our project to a much higher impact level and meaning.