Dear J.

Dear J Final Project 7020

Collaborators:
Qian Su, Bhurin Sead, Deborah Latz

What was it:
Our event invited park goers at Union Square Park, in New York City, to write with sidewalk chalk an important, positive message that they felt people needed to see. The area where park goers were invited to write included chalk drawings of a meandering hopscotch pathway. For those that knew of the event, links to short videos composed of audio recordings were sent out leading up to the event. On the morning of the event, a link was sent out of the final video that framed the event through parts of the original documentary, “Homosexuality: One Child’s Point of View”, and composed music. For the rest of those that were unaware of the event when they encountered it, a QR code was posted that allowed them to access the same final video.

Why:
While we had plans to develop a workshop series that would engage youth and activate their voices, we found that the process was long, slow and challenging. As the deadline approached to present a final presentation/workshop, we were able to interview Jahanara. She was the ‘child’ in the 1990 documentary and is now 35 years with three children and one on the way!

This interview injected new energy into our project and we were reminded of what drew us to the initial documentary, “Homosexuality: One Child’s Point of View”. Taking that inspiration, we wanted to develop an event that would celebrate Jahanara and her voice. We hoped that the celebration would help inspire others to use their voice.

How did we do it:
While we spent the majority of our time reaching out to communities and scheduling a time for an interview with Jahanara, the final project came together fairly quickly. We allowed ourselves to let go of our previous idea of creating youth workshops and honor the inspiration we found in the documentary.