Ashley Wu
Uptown Kids
My Uptown Kids thesis project evolved from my work as a student mentor at the Polo Grounds Community Center, a space built within the Polo Grounds public housing projects complex at 155th Street in Harlem, New York. This body of work has several missions. It contextualizes Polo Grounds as a physical structure and as a community while deconstructing issues of social and economic inequality. It questions the ways in which documentary and collaborative practices can work with or push against traditional forms supported in art institutions (galleries, museums, schools). Ultimately, it tries to find a balance between criticizing the systemic issues that affect public housing and education and telling the stories that exist on a micro level at Polo Grounds Community Center.
