My group was assigned the neighborhood of Central Park to explore and research. Our research included visual documentation of the land, businesses, people, attitude, pace, activity, and style. The people around us were all very supportive. Most tourists respected our need to capture the park’s elegance, and, surprisingly, residents found participating in our artistic exploration interesting. It demonstrated New York’s recent collective support for street performance and fine art. We also analyzed our findings through written conclusions, as well as a collective moodboard theme. Lastly, in the design of our garment we addressed historical topics such as the jogger case; as well as the boom of Park North gangs, crime, and drug abuse during the Great Depression.
I found portraying the culture of Central Park challenging. Thinking culture had to do with societal expectations, attitude, traditions, and style, I struggled with capturing it in a natural environment. I focused on identifying social groups, rather than various species of trees, styles of gardens, and the layout of the neighborhood in general. As a group, we had many faults in the collection of our research. Our exploration day was primarily unproductive due to our lack of planning prior to our adventure. Therefore we spent much of our time developing an itinerary, rather than collecting images and notes. In addition, our historical research made was narrow-minded. We used the jogger case and similar assault cases that occured in the park around a similar decade to describe the history of the park as a whole, developing holes in our timeline.
Our neighborhood’s cloudy past is a result of the today’s recent development and presence of lush pastures, athletic facilities, commercial businesses, and families. This was the inspiration of our garment design, which consists entirely of natural materials from the park, of a structured top and more form-fitted, worn bottom garment to convey the duality between the past and present due to today’s remarkable renovations.
