Nina Worren / Visual Artist

I have been her kind

“We lived in an old factory building in Kent Avenue in Brooklyn. It was raw steel, asphalt and concrete, noise, and people everywhere. Every morning we walked out into the streets of the orthodox Jewish district, we passed the gangs of the hood guys with rap on their ghettoblasters and the hipsters drinking their takeaway morning coffee on our way to the L train and the skyscrapers of Manhattan. People from all over the world and cultures lived side by side. We felt at home. We felt like New Yorkers.

It was the year 2008-2009. The dust after 9/11 were still in the air above Ground Zero. The financial crisis hit the world. Obama was elected. Michael Jackson died.

Even if the stores were filled with several different brands of each product, there was also a food stamp kiosk on the corner from where we lived. The chickens walked their naive happy and free final walk on the pavement before someone came and picked them up for dinner. We could see it on the subway; more people asking for money and food every day.

But it was also rooftops and skylines, a special and beautiful light and reflections, fog and steams rising in the streets from the underground, it was jazz, spice, BBQ parties and electric energy. The city’s warmth and generosity embraced us in her cradle and her openminded diversity and size kept us thrilled and adventurous.

It was you and me. Dizzy and overwhelmed. It was knock on wood, 7-9-13. Getting to know the city and each other’s secrets. Exploring our differences and backgrounds. Sharing the present and establishing common dreams as each other’s chosen family and relatives. The complexity in freedom and belonging. Learning to trust and find strength in the vulnerable thin line that could break in a split of a second.

This is a story about intimacy, struggle, anxiety, fear, beauty, and love. A diaristic exploration portraying a state of mind, emotions and thoughts, two humans in this city at this time."