The Ave

An outdoor video installation highlighting Jamaica (and the Ave) as a commercial hub and main thoroughfare. The goal was to document the diversity and energy of Jamaica, while encouraging passersby to connect these spaces to their own memories and experiences.

These video works are as much about me and my connection to Cambria Heights and southeast Queens through Jamaica Ave as they are about The Ave itself and its process of gentrification. Collectively, they provide fractured and incomplete views of The Ave from three perspectives related to my daily commute. The initial goal of this project was to document Jamaica Ave as a lively thoroughfare, but the result has been an exercise in erasure and abstraction. Ultimately, the work is asking: who decides what remains of a place over time? What role does documentation play in the doctoring of memory?

Sponsored by the Queens Council on the Arts: ArtSite public art commission.