Abigail DeVille's Harlem Stories | ART21 "New York Close Up"

[film reel]

[percussion and horn music]

Excuse me.

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

and making people get out of your way.

[laughing]

I think pushing things
in carts is just city living.

Like, there's no car culture
here in New York.

And I think it's already
inherently understood,

she's working slash she's an artist.

What are ya'll doin?

Oh, you're doing an art documentary?

Good luck to you.

[rattling]

Alright, alright.

I'm interesting in telling
invisible histories,

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

Like the 400 year old history
here in Harlem

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

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

Nobody would know
that 123 West 131st Street

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

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

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

For one apartment in the building.

It's like, gimme a break.

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

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

I know that he was raised
by an elder couple.

and their names were
Mari and Count DeVille,

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

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

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

[rattling]

My grandmother lived across the street.

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

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

the brownstone that she lived in.

My grandmother's family came
from Richmond, Virginia

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

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

to Northern cities and west,
looking for better opportunities.

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

like building sites of new things.

It sort of feels like the Earth
is shifting and moving

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

and old things are being done away with.

New groups of people are moving in

and old groups of people
are being pushed out,

so, it's almost like migratory patterns
of birds or something.

You're witnessing history.

[cart rattling]

[unintelligible speaking]

There is an African burial ground
somewhere near 126th Street

and the base of the Willis Avenue bridge.

It seems to be some strange staging ground

for emergency vehicles
and police presence, continuously.

[crash]

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

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

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

A condo sliver.

[tape ripping]

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

So this is my first pass at it.

It's just an exercise in acknowledgment.

[rustling]

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

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

and still aren't cared about.

I was trying to invoke
a human kind of presence.

[background street sounds]

I think of trash as a record of existence.

That these things were used by people.

They're the archaeological evidence
of the present moment.

History is permeating everything.

Whether you know it or not.

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

because that's how
those people were treated.

That's how that site is being treated.

[child laughing]

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

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

is the reason you exist.

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

She got knocked up with my dad, you know?

Like, if she didn't think the dude
across the street

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

I don't think things are just...random,
they're not.

[street sounds]
[music]