1
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[film reel]

2
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[percussion and horn music]

3
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Excuse me.

4
00:00:30,829 --> 00:00:37,579
[background street sounds]

5
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It's fun to be in the street, 
like, pushing something

6
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and making people get out of your way.

7
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[laughing]

8
00:00:54,791 --> 00:00:58,095
I think pushing things 
in carts is just city living.

9
00:00:59,815 --> 00:01:02,736
Like, there's no car culture
here in New York.

10
00:01:04,186 --> 00:01:05,906
And I think it's already 
inherently understood,

11
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she's working slash she's an artist.

12
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What are ya'll doin?

13
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Oh, you're doing an art documentary?

14
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Good luck to you.

15
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[rattling]

16
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Alright, alright.

17
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I'm interesting in telling
invisible histories,

18
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about groups of people that occupied 
a space that no longer exists.

19
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Like the 400 year old history 
here in Harlem

20
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is just the original natives 
being displaced up to this very moment.

21
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But, they helped shaped 
the place into what it is now.

22
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[background street sounds]

23
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Nobody would know 
that 123 West 131st Street

24
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was a boarding house and that 
my grandfather was born and raised in.

25
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And now it's the ugliest building 
on the block.

26
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This salmon colored thing 
that was selling for $500,000.

27
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For one apartment in the building.

28
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It's like, gimme a break.

29
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I'm not 100% sure on background 
information on my grandfather,

30
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and I don't know how much 
clarity he had himself.

31
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I know that he was raised
by an elder couple.

32
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and their names were 
Mari and Count DeVille,

33
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so you know, good luck finding that
on Ancestry.com.

34
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I think maybe that's what placing 
those heads in the street was about,

35
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kind of reclaiming of a space,
or of a territory.

36
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[rattling]

37
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[background street sounds]

38
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My grandmother lived across the street.

39
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And so that's how she met my grandfather,
and, um, made my daddy.

40
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So, I just chose a space 
that could potentially have been

41
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the brownstone that she lived in.

42
00:03:14,810 --> 00:03:18,592
My grandmother's family came 
from Richmond, Virginia

43
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in the '30s and '40s, 
so they were part of the Great Migration.

44
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Just like the wave of 6 million 
African Americans moving from the South

45
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to Northern cities and West, 
looking for better opportunities.

46
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And, here we are hundred years later,
and now there's holes all over Harlem,

47
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like building sites of new things.

48
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It sort of feels like the Earth
is shifting and moving

49
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and things are being razed and leveled 
and new things are being built

50
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and old things are being done away with.

51
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New groups of people are moving in


52
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and old groups of people 
are being pushed out,

53
00:03:57,204 --> 00:04:01,653
so, it's almost like migratory patterns 
of birds or something.

54
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You're witnessing history.

55
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[cart rattling]

56
00:04:14,313 --> 00:04:18,525
[unintelligible speaking]

57
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There is an African burial ground 
somewhere near 126th Street

58
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and the base of the Willis Avenue bridge.

59
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It seems to be some strange staging ground


60
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for emergency vehicles 
and police presence, continuously.

61
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[crash]

62
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It's just and odd in between place, 
that hasn't found meaning yet.

63
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That they haven't been able 
to turn into something depressing,

64
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like a Whole Foods, or a, uh, a condo.

65
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A condo sliver.

66
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[tape ripping]

67
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I've been thinking 
about that site for a long time.

68
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So this is my first pass at it.

69
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It's just an exercise of acknowledgment.

70
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[rustling]

71
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All I kept thinking about was these bodies
with no names and no faces.

72
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These bodies that weren't cared about 
while they were here,

73
00:05:31,388 --> 00:05:34,178
and still aren't cared about.

74
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I was trying to invoke 
a human kind of presence.

75
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[background street sounds]

76
00:05:48,187 --> 00:05:52,348
I think of trash as a record of existence.

77
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That these things were used by people.

78
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They're the archaeological evidence
of the present moment.

79
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History is permeating everything.

80
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Whether you know it or not.

81
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I think trash is the absolute perfect 
response for talking about that space

82
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because that's how 
those people were treated.

83
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That's how that site is being treated.

84
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[child laughing]

85
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I think it's important to acknowledge
the people that went behind you.

86
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Even if they lived the most mundane life, 
decisions they made

87
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are the reason why you exist.

88
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'Cause my gran'ma thought 
my grandad was cute.

89
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She got knocked up with my dad, you know?

90
00:07:03,291 --> 00:07:05,212
Like, if she didn't think the dude 
across the street

91
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was cute with his straight hair, 
you know, I wouldn't be here.

92
00:07:09,051 --> 00:07:15,642
I don't think things are just...random, 
they're not.

93
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[street sounds]
[music]