Taking a look up at New York’s most omnipresent, and most ignored, infrastructure.
When I was thirteen, I visited New York for the first time. As I looked up, trying to catch a glimpse of a skyscraper, some oddly shaped structures caught my attention. I mistook them to be abandoned and kept them in my mind as nostalgic objects. Years later, I returned to this city to learn that these structures effectively supply water from above to one of the most populous places on earth. And yet they remain invisible to many.
I developed this project as my thesis for my MA in Media Studies at the New School. The idea was to turn people’s heads toward the unseen yet necessary structures of the city. I have always strived to find beauty in unlikely places; I blame the American author Henry Miller for that.
Amy Vilela lost her daughter when she couldn’t afford the medical bills. When her Congressman told her he wouldn’t support universal healthcare, Amy said, “I’m running.”
Cori Bush is a registered nurse, a pastor and a mom. After taking to the streets to protest police killings, she looked in the mirror and said, “why not politician, too?”
“The Boss of the Queens Machine” hasn’t faced a primary challenger in 14 years. But an underfunded upstart is suddenly giving him a run for his money.
Paula Jean Swearengin has seen West Virginia’s land exploited, its people fall ill, and its politicians do nothing. So she decided to do something herself.
The coalminer’s daughter. The bartender. The police brutality activist. The grieving mother. Each looked at the man representing her in Congress and said, “I can do better.”
As Mark McKinley puts it, “no collector ever says, ‘I’ve gone too far.'” After 27 years and an official Guinness World Record, he stands by that statement.
Three young Spaniards are reviving the farming tradition that flourished in their grandparents' generation.
“Who would look after him if I wasn’t here?” and other questions this mom asks herself every day.
Meet a teenage actor-singer-comedian with absolutely no doubt that his tumultuous adolescence will soon give way to Hollywood fame.
We humans are far more complex than the news headlines and clickbait would have you believe. Let the Narratively newsletter be your guide.
