Gentrification of Brooklyn, New York, has been going fast, and graphic designer Njoki Gitahi had mixed feelings about all the bars and shops driving low-income residents out of the neighbourhood. Her project Neighborhood Remarks gives people the opportunity to react on changes in the neighbourhood. The project just got nominated for the INDEX awards.
Neighborhood Remarks consists of a set of outdoor stickers that provide a framework for community members to react on changes in their surroundings. Such reactions on the surfaces that are transforming can spark the discussion between neighbours, business owners, visitors and community developers. The stickers can be downloaded from neigborhoodremarks.com and people are encouraged to upload their photos of the stickers in use.
Njoki Gitahi works at IDEO. She earned her MFA from the graduate program at the Yale University School of Art. She has a bachelor’s degree in geology from Amherst College and spent six years as an assistant curator for the petrology collection at the American Museum of Natural History.