Model and Strategy
Bayview Hunters Point faces some of the steepest socioeconomic challenges. 20% of families live below the poverty line, nearly double that of the city’s average. BVHP’s longstanding problem has been the dearth of productive, engaging activities for the community and its youth. This will serve as a transformative project that aims to combat these challenges, instilling social consciousness and empowerment in community and youth participants.
Picture Bayview will celebrate innovation by engaging diverse artists through an outstanding collaborative work. It will respect “place” by retaining social and historical integrity in the process of exploration, research, community connection and interpretation. It achieves this by providing the necessary environment and tools for both adult and youth artists to engage socially and creatively at the highest levels. This project reflects Zaccho’s commitment to increasing awareness and healing within the community of world citizens.
Impact
Events such as Picture contribute to a dramatic change in the general perception of stressed neighborhoods. BVHP is generally perceived as a violent, lowincome, gangridden community that people are afraid of. A project illuminating the diverse and positive accomplishments of the local people and the rising potential that residents believe in has the power to change an outsider’s perspective. Picture Bayview will show that community members have been living in BVHP for generations and have survived the ups and downs of economic and social success and strife. They are a working class community with families who have dreams like everyone else. They acknowledge the power of positive change and they choose to live nowhere else.
And yet this very community is disappearing with the onset of redevelopment and gentrification. Zaccho’s hope is to contribute to the creation of an infrastructure that can support the community who is already here. As a multidimensional artistic platform, Picture will bridge the gap to BVHP, creating real connections to the neighborhood from the outside. People who do not yet see the value in this community will be given a lens into what is at stake if the community disappears.
Leadership
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Joanna Haigood
Artistic Director