Last Friday, The Fourth Wall Project opened the Anonymous Boston exhibit. Photographs of young victims are carefully presented all along the walls with brief descriptions of their lives next to the demeaning comments left by anonymous bloggers. The exhibit works to challenge the ways in which the media approaches homicide and violence in urban areas. Joanna Marinova Jones, leader of the project, has witnessed the emotional devastation caused by anonymous comments in the media.
“I work with young people and they bury on average from two to five of their friends. I saw them reading the papers and reacting to what was written, and I wanted to do something,”
” I wanted to be able to look them in the eye and know that I’ve done everything possible for them to have a better world.”
” So that’s how it got started and from there I just kind of spoke this idea and so many people came to help. Thomas B. Kwest did the mural, Eroc Ernesto did the photography, and school volunteers, there’s just been an immeasurable amount of people that had their hand in this.”
“As you can see this isn’t meant to make anyone feel comfortable, on any level. It’s meant to shake you up. And when I would go home after talking to them, their words were just haunting me. I wanted people to get that visceral experience of loosing somebody.”
The exhibit is successful in subverting the rhetoric of the news because it presents its audience with the specific stories and faces of those lives lost. One space on the wall is left for guests of the gallery to write their own comments.
Ernesto Eroc Arroyo’s photographs of the victim’s families are lined up contributing to the already impactful presentation of the gallery.
Once a large crowd of people finally made it to the exhibit, an African band led the group in musical prayer. Everyone was singing along and you could feel the energy of every person in the room.
The band leader had no trouble convincing the crowd to participate.
“we’re all connected so if we sing a note and we all sing together, it’s going to align our vibrations, metaphorically.”
After the group prayer, we were treated to moving speech from Ernesto and Joanna who effectively communicated the intentions of their efforts.
“When I think about anonymous Boston I think of two things: one of them are these spiteful comments that come from readers and people that have been mislead by sensationalized news media, quote unquote news media, that pretends to speak for community but speaks of us as others, so we know they are not speaking for us. And so we will create the spaces because we can.”
Ernesto invited Joanna to the mic where she admitted she was a terrified public speaker. If it weren’t for this confession she would have fooled us all.
“I’m not much for speeches because I feel like our communities have enough of those.”
“A lot of people grab the mic, say a lot of things and don’t do anything about it. There’s also a lot of poverty pimping going around. A lot of people are profiting from death, a lot of people are profiting from these tragedies.”
“And I can just sum it up, at the bottom of that mural there is one word and it says ‘enough’ and I hope that you all stand with me and say ‘enough’ and we need to recognize everybody in their strength and their humanity. “
Joanna was referencing Thomas. B Kwest’s powerful mural he had painted for the exhibit entitled Cause and Effect.
This Thursday November 10th, at 6pm, Anonymous Boston will be inviting all members of the press to join together at the Fourth Wall gallery in order to discuss alternative ways to report on sensitive subjects like homicide.
Photography by Nabeela Vega
[Through Sat 11.19.11. Fourth Wall Project. 132 Brookline Ave., Boston. Wed-Fri, 1pm-6pm. Sun 1pm-5pm]
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