Look Mom, No Windows!

"Look Mom, No Windows! started out as an experiment looking at tiny houses surrounded by pools of water. It then evolved into a public park including a semi-functional sculpture garden complete with several pools and spaces to have picnics or other gatherings.

My work is a series of pen and ink drawing, vector illustrations, renderings, and zines that explore the status quo of our environments and poses the question: What would we have built?

As Black people, we have had little opportunity to impact how the world around us in the United States is shaped. Whenever we did our own towns or tried to expand our communities, they were often burned down, buried, or economically shunned. When projects were built primarily housing poor Black people, their input was not something that was included in the plans. When middle-class Black people were able to find a place to call home, it was in neighborhoods that were already built – and often experienced white flight as soon as the cities became 'too black,' also resulting in less economic support to change what was already there. As a result, our environments were and still are dictated by the ruling class, with little regard to what we need or desire as integral to our culture, traditions, and moral standards."

– Camille Elston