My main concerns reflected in my thesis are the collision of the artist, place and community, and how these collaborations produce the work I’m interested in making within an institutional art context. I’m from “felony flats,” a stretch of Portland from Powell Boulevard to Johnson Creek Boulevard, infamously known for the highest concentration of felons in the Portland area. I’ve always felt left out of the greater Portland narrative of yuppies in flannel who ironically drink shitty beer (or know too much about beer) and ride bikes (or consider themselves “cyclists” no offense). I wanted to tell a different story of Portland: the gritty, the criminal, the ignored and unloved. As a person who has experienced what it’s like to see my family incarcerated, I felt like 82nd was a metaphor of how it felt to deal with my internalized emotions around shame and rage. 82nd Avenue became a love story to myself and everyone I have encountered during this project. I began photographically documenting the landscape to control Portland by how I see it: I find power in composing an image. It gives me a greater sense of control in a world where I feel I have no control or input. Photography was a way to preserve and build deeper connections with my landscape and those who inhibited it. I print my images on steel through an etching process that is both highly archival and actively eroding the image through oxidation and exposure to the environment. I am interested in exploring the paradox of preservation and loss, as it pertains to one’s own subjective experience of a place in relationship with the surrounding community at large both before and after the COVID-19 pandemic.