Rooted primarily in drawing, South Side Infinity Sign presents a psychogeographical meditation on the shifting spaces of the city of Minneapolis. This work is a hyperlocal study of a city in a state of reconfiguration, connecting its immediate present with the past while considering the uncertainties of the future. The landscapes highlight signs of both resilience and desperation in the margins of South Minneapolis neighborhoods – its streets, vacant spaces, burn scars, and edgelands. The processes of looking, cataloging, and filtering that built this work serve to ground me in navigating my personal relationships with place, class, and the future.

Most of the drawings were created following the unrest of summer 2020 that left many areas of South Minneapolis shaken and marred, predominantly along the Lake Street corridor, and were completed after revisiting and documenting sites in the summer and winter of 2021. The work captures places in states of limbo and imbues otherwise desolate depictions of space with a human presence through the language of graffiti. Using the built environment as a substrate, the work projects personal frustrations with the failings and broken frameworks of the city. While these undercurrents of discord and disillusion are present in the drawings, the imagery is rendered with lush detail and luminous color as a reminder of the potential for progress and renewal.

A video combining a collection of text and imagery accompanies the drawings. Sequences of stream-of-consciousness text notations, a succession of photographs, and video footage are layered and interspersed throughout. These raw visual materials catalog my experience and surroundings and serve as important documentary elements in my creative practice.

Turning the South Side S on its side and tracing through it an infinity sign – this work is an ode to the city to which I will always return.