"Photo Essay"

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Artist Statement

“The Highway”

I was once told that Milwaukee’s highway system was intentionally designed to segregate the city, outlining racial, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds. My perspective is one of a life-long resident; and the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Over the course of my life I’ve lived on the South Side, the suburbs, prestige North Shore, and hip East Side. The reality is, as one drives down I-43 the “segregated sections” can actually be pointed out. I don’t know if this was intended by the city, but not knowing opens a lot of doors as to what media can unconsciously creep into our understanding of reality; making it seem possible. Through the use of television show theme songs, audio clips, reproduced iconic images, stereotypical perspectives, and my personal life experience; my goal was to create a piece that could be understood through common media consumption. From a cultural perspective I show the vast diversity Milwaukee offers, while at the same time integrating Midwest stereotypes/culture. The purpose is to show separation next to similarity, through another perspective on what culture is, and common ground that others around the world can’t relate to, other than stereotypically. My high school was surprisingly diverse. The transition to UWM was far from culture shock, it was home. That being said, Milwaukee might very well be one of the most interesting places to survive culture shock. The city is terribly segregated, but most likely because of economic restraints, not preplanned territories caged off from one another. News broadcasting and printed media project the same lines as the highway theory, and make the concept possible in the first place.