BLIGHT + BIRTH - 2007
AP Design Portfolio Concentration

Concentration Statement:
Man's interaction with nature. The summer of 2006, I worked for a sustainable youth corps in New Mexico, volunteered at an elephant conservation center in Thailand, and in 2007 worked for a local wetlands restoration organization in Los Angeles. Among my experiences, I began to witness and understand the complex relationship we humans share with the environment.

I initially focused on nature’s reclamation of land and space. In both “colorado mine” (II-1) and “bathtub” (II-3) I explored the effects of the natural elements upon manmade structures more than 50 years old, in which nature clearly avenged itself. I then moved on to more recent examples of urban decay, such as the “ruins” (II-4) of Alcatraz Island, deteriorating housing in Bangkok [“same same,” (II-5)], a filthy “market” (II-7) in a Myanmar slum, and finally something closer to home, urban waste, in “ballona creek raw materials” (II-8). I continued to progress and culminated in exploring blight’s modern epitome--poverty. In “abandoned” (II-9), “charred” (II-11), and “strewn” (II-12), I examined Nuevo Esperanza, a town of approximately 500 shacks built on and around a trash dump outside of Tijuana, Mexico. After exploring a bevy of man’s varying abuses and nature’s recoils, I decided to entitle my concentration “blight and birth,” hinting at the hope in nature's continual ability to regenerate.

colorado minecolorado mine digital photograph stovestove digital photograph bathtubbathtub digital photograph ruinsruins 35mm color disposable cellcell 35mm color disposable same samesame same digital photograph marketmarket digital photograph abandonedabandoned digital photograph ballona creek raw materialsballona creek raw materials digital photograph charredcharred digital photograph wireswires digital photograph strewnstrewn digital photograph