After a visit to the industrial zone stretching between Gary, Indiana and southern Chicago, I was overwhelmed and exhausted by the images I had seen and the mental and emotional reactions I exhibited. It was like nothing I had experienced before and gave me a new awareness of the way our country runs. The most heavily industrialized patch of land in the United states is a manmade peninsula between Gary and Chicago. Being on this peninsula made my skin crawl and my breath catch in my chest. There was nothing in any direction but smoke stacks, warehouses and jutting metal beams. No sign of moving, living creatures, only moving, ticking and chugging machinery. It was a foreign space, a space that felt like it didn't belong in the same world in which people stroll through parks, eat their dinners and occupy themselves with human worries. Although that world is a world constructed by humans, it was hard to see or believe a connection between such a harsh and lifeless place and a world of active and conscience beings.
Yet this world is a central part to the functioning of our country. Not only is it in the front yards of many people's homes but its products our used to construct every city in this country. Every state and county benefits from the steel that comes out of this unfamiliar, ignored landscape. Although an unpleasant place with many negative affects on the area around it, this industrial space is much more complicated and interconnected than one would realize. It is not a simple matter that can be judged using the terms bad and good. I was particularly struck by the numerous abandoned factories in the area and the affect they had on the people in the region. As factories are abandoned, one sees the crumbling of downtown stores, social centers and the general economy and energy of the area. These abandoned spaces demonstrate the affect they once had on the area and raise the question of what should become of them once they are no longer in use.
It is not possible to transmit the raw feelings and reactions I felt entering this terribly ignored place, but I hope that, through the use of poetry and photography, I can make people more aware of a space that does not deserve to be ignored, a space that, whether good or bad, greatly affects our entire country. Using two different mediums, images and words I hope to offer others a chance to react in their own way to this influential area.