Zakiyyah Woods
Project: People as Pages
For the purpose of the Laundromat Project microgrant, People as Pages will document the lived experiences of long-time senior Bed-Stuy residents who relocated to the neighborhood during The Great Migration (1910-1970). Many older Bed-Stuy natives and their descendants do not realize they are a part of American history that shaped many of our country’s major cities, so they don’t see their narrative as important. Engaging with older residents and learning their stories is a way to correct this. Community elders who have lived full, rich lives deserve to be chronicled as a part of our shared human experience. The current political climate of our country is an active threat to the archives and lived histories of Americans of color. Generations of undisputed knowledge could be lost if we don’t create our own records independent of whoever is in power. We feel an urgency to act now. Open Intergenerational conversations can reveal a lot about where we are today as a community as well as the intersections between human rights, history, the arts, justice, gender and sexuality. In addition to the audio element of People as Pages, we also aim to include archival family photographs from our participants and make new portraits of all our interviewees to be used in a future interactive exhibit in spaces like the Bed-Stuy Restoration Plaza. We see this grant as a vital initial step in a lifelong journey of listening to the stories of senior Americans and documenting them for posterity.
Bio:
People as Pages is an oral history and visual archive project created by Bed-Stuy residents Zakiyyah Woods and Hari Adivarekar that documents the lived experiences of older Americans, with a special focus on those over the age of 65, people of color, and queer or female-identifying individuals. We aim to amplify their life stories with the firm belief that first-person narratives have the capability to inspire future generations. Our hope is for this work to provide personal insight and historical contexts, serve as a public record, and foster inter-generational conversations. Our larger aim is to make People as Pages a long-term oral history project that spans Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, NYC, and the rest of the country. Being rooted in Bed-Stuy we felt it was only right to begin at home and then work our way outwards. We are vastly experienced multimedia journalists and producers who have received a master’s degree in engagement journalism and are equipped with a unique skill set to merge community work and media documentation, along with our lived experience and deep roots in Bed-Stuy.
People as Pages is an oral history and visual archive project created by Bed-Stuy residents Zakiyyah Woods and Hari Adivarekar that documents the lived experiences of older Americans, with a special focus on those over the age of 65, people of color, and queer or female-identifying individuals. We aim to amplify their life stories with the firm belief that first-person narratives have the capability to inspire future generations. Our hope is for this work to provide personal insight and historical contexts, serve as a public record, and foster inter-generational conversations. Our larger aim is to make People as Pages a long-term oral history project that spans Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, NYC, and the rest of the country. Being rooted in Bed-Stuy we felt it was only right to begin at home and then work our way outwards. We are vastly experienced multimedia journalists and producers who have received a master’s degree in engagement journalism and are equipped with a unique skill set to merge community work and media documentation, along with our lived experience and deep roots in Bed-Stuy.