Jude, what are some fond memories from growing up in NYC? 👉🏽 “Being a child of NYC that was lucky enough to grow up in the East Village/Lower East Side during the 90’s, is a perpetual cycle of nostalgia and heartbreak. You know, most days when I walk around the streets I used to run around as a kid, I feel like an alien, a foreign entity that is simply visiting. So in a way I thrive in my constant nostalgia for what once was. I often daydream about the energy and essence of my hood back when I was a child. For me it is less about specific memories so much as it is a deep and spiritual feeling, that felt unique to that time. Words really seem futile when trying to describe that feeling but the closest thing I can come up with would be community. That word in itself seems so inadequate to use considering how much it’s thrown around without actual practice or action these days. But at the root of that essence that those streets, alleys, the food, parks and human beings possessed that shaped my world as a kid- it really does come down to that feeling like i belonged to a village, a tribe, a harmonious ecosystem. It’s painful to watch so many newcomers move here and think that what they’re experiencing is “New York”, when most of what they’re attaching that to is actually just ego. And yeah maybe I’m biased and becoming a bitter True Yorker. And maybe I am in denial that this is just a city that’s honest nature IS change. Perhaps that is all true. But at the end of the day all I can do is use my nostalgia & heartbreak as a channel for deep gratitude that I got to experience my youth in the best city in the world during what felt like such a spiritual era of it’s mythos.” — @judeliana #slambook #blackandwhite #portraiture #newyorker