#Ferguson

On August 9, 2014 an unarmed teen, Michael Brown, was killed by a Ferguson, Missouri police officer. His death sparked a national response and international attention to an issue within our country, “post racial America”.

Ferguson is a suburb of my hometown, St. Louis, MO. This place where I grew up had become an epicenter of a potential civil rights movement. When this situation arose, I wasn’t home. I stayed on the phone several nights with my family and friends, as I followed the news and social media to see how the circumstances surrounding a young man’s death were evolving into something more.

I returned home on the same day the National Guard left Ferguson, a couple of months following the shooting. I didn’t know what to expect upon my arrival. There were no protests and there wasn’t an overabundance of cops on the street. For every piece of vandalism and destruction I encountered, I found a mural depicting positive messages in attempts to unify the city. The images in this body of work do not have any people just an environment that was the center of anger, hurt, confusion and chaos. Michael Brown’s death was a catalyst for the Black Lives Matter movement. It helped bring the discussion of institutionalized racism in our country to the forefront in social media.