Looking back at a lot of my work from my film days of the 90’s, the word ‘gentrification’ played itself out in the many subjects I had photographed. I’ve seen many neighborhoods in Chicago undergo extreme change. While the premise of this was ideally good–to make neighborhoods safer and better–it’s outcome made it’s original residents refugees as these areas such as Logan Square became the land of developers and wealthy implants. Artists first come for the cheaper rent, the hipsters support neighborhood shops and start up new ones. But the developers and property owners are the ones who buy up the real estate, only to charge ridiculous rents in order to make the neighborhood theirs instead of everyones. This is another one of Sam Kirk’s murals, a multidisciplinary artist whose art focuses on the culture and history of these neighborhoods undergoing change.
MICHAEL A. PRIORIE 