These are contact prints of sights where murders due to gang violence occurred in my old stomping grounds of Cicero, Il (mostly pouring over from my old, old stomping grounds of Little Village).
I lived there from the time I was 4 until about the time I was 14. I remember playing outside, but needing to be careful. I remember my neighbors across the street from my house, the police were constantly there for drug busts and domestic abuse. I don't know the full details, but I do remember gun shots from time to time. At the time, I never thought much of it. It was just a part of my every day life. It wasn't until my sculpture class last semester that I really started to think about it. I then started to research reported murders in the area, and found that at least 60% were due to some sort of gang related activity. I was stunned. Well, not really. I knew it was bad, but in all honesty, it didn't hit until I read all the reports. Ever since I was a kid, I had seen the "Gang-Free Zone" signs posted everywhere and I always thought it was ironic because we knew what gang signs were, what we shouldn't wear so we didn't get caught in any cross fire, etc. Anyway, this is where the title came from. It seemed to make the most sense.
So on to the process...
I chose this method because I felt like negatives are like a memory, and these spaces in themseleves are memories, thus I made negatives on paper.
That's pretty much all there is to it...
