Urban Room

Ongoing

Gowanus Yearbook

Gowanus Yearbook is a living portrait of Gowanus. The project invites neighborhood residents to be photographed, mark their photos with the year they arrived or were born in Gowanus, and draw a symbol answering the prompt: “What makes Gowanus Gowanus?”

This work is grounded in a simple but urgent idea: everyone experiences and perceives where they live differently. In neighborhoods undergoing rapid development, local histories are often at risk of being lost or diminished. Gowanus Yearbook responds to that pressure by treating memory as something communal, lived, and worth protecting.

The project team has collected portraits at community events held at Van Alen Institute, NYCHA’s Gowanus Houses Community Center, and Wild East Brewing Co. To date, more than 50 portraits have been collected. The project will culminate with a Yearbook Signing Party at Van Alen Institute — details to be announced!

Gowanus Yearbook is created by Rida Chaudhry, Ananaya Singh, and Kaye Yuvallos, who met in Parsons’ Resilient Mutual Development graduate course taught by Juanli Carríon. Juanli previously collaborated with Van Alen Institute on the multi-site installation With Your Voice, leading to an ongoing partnership with Van Alen to conduct community research in Gowanus.