(in)visible infrastructures

(in)visible infrastructures is a VR New Media Art Project intended to highlight the important bonds created through culture and history in Chicagoland Neighborhoods and the City of Waukegan. With storytelling at its core, the VR experience emulates visiting spaces and places critical to the development of youth in these communities and the struggles inherent in disinvestment, gentrification, racism, and inequality. 

Introduction

Neighborhoods and the places we call home are extremely influential in developing our identity and engagement in culture and society. In the Chicagoland area the concept of a neighborhood has long been embedded in its peoples history and culture.


A longtime tradition of naming where ones family was raised is bedrock small-talk amongst chicagoans. While this has been and continues to be a tradition for people raised in the area, the landscape and demographics have changed much in the past 5 decades. Continuing evolution and economic priorities have created uneven growth amongst communities, some left disinvested and struggling to economically thrive. The implication of finding what the term neighborhood might mean today is challenging. Gentrification and generational racist approaches to urbanism have pushed the economic bar higher for minority groups and often disrupt, influence and dissolve their communities. To understand this process requires an experiential approach. Navigating the streets of Chicago’s neighborhoods by vehicle, a thing most of us do, isn’t quite enough to clearly understand the infrastructures that hold people together and the importance of place for those who live within. Beyond household doors and storefronts exists a network of people finding commonality rooted in their stories and history.


Episode 1: Alondra Velazquez and The Little Village

(Pilot Episode)

The first episode began in the summer of 2021, Alondra and I created a plan to visit Little Village and decided upon visiting two locations she felt were important and showed the narrative of the struggles of her neighborhood. The first location was the Little Village Discount Mall located at on w 26th Street between Troy and Whipple Streets. 

To view this video with a Meta Quest headset please visit this link: Coming Soon


To View this video with other headsets please visit the following links:  https://youtu.be/A5rrtneiIyU


The Discount Mall St Agnes Church W 26th Street

The place is a pure manifestation of the cultural traditions, heritage and history of the latino immigrants to the United States, it is a collection of lightly divided shops within a larger space, each one selling items that are decidedly targeted to the community that surrounds it. There was much consternation about the space as it was slated to be demolished and replaced with chain retail shops in the near future. Alondra spoke about the challenges that people face when they see longstanding spaces like the Discount Mall disappear and be replaced by something less tied to their community. It seems like a frequent occurrence. Taking up a large parking lot space and a larger real estate within the little village it seems logical that this area would be targeted by developers. When places like the discount mall disappears the community infrastructure diminishes. 


Alondra took me on the second journey to St Agnes Church on Central Park Avenue. This Church is known for its commitment to the Little Village Community, its assistance to the youth and its collaboration with the local residents make it a strong element to the community. Alondras mother is a member of this church and she remembers it from early childhood. It is these and other places like it that provide a sense of stability and encouragement for the neighborhood and its people.


The third journey took us through perhaps Little Villages best known thoroughfares 26 Street. This is where the neighborhood is most commercially active and amongst other things it is the area with the most vibrant infrastructure, the commerce and the active street experience according to Alondra is one of the things she cares deeply about. This reminds her of home and her childhood experience. The presence of street dancers known as the Chinelos, a community dance studio and several locally run business give a peak to a rooted cultural growth. This is also where the changes associated with gentrification can begin to settle. Alondra understands that progress is necessary but box stores and chain enterprises are hardly harbingers of progress. These new businesses often represent the unraveling of local networking and the local abandonment of neighborhood in favor of the suburbs. Alondra reflects on her experience of knowing many people who have left the Little Village due to the challenges of government underinvestment in education and other services. Crime and gangs also make many longtime residents of the Little Village leave. 


Documentation in 3 Dimensional Space

The documentation of these spaces is important as a historical record. It is evident that even though some communities have formed around commonality in culture, experience and history, a community can be ephemeral and its beginning and passing can be experienced within one lifetime. This cycle has repeated itself throughout urban USA. Until we find the way to direct our eyes to the importance of community infrastructure over profit, real estate speculation and structural racism we continue on the perpetual search for the elusive communities we want.