Olivia Root, “More Than Meets the Eye”

My project is based around the stigma of inner city public school. As someone who attended an inner city school from kindergarten to graduation, I felt a strong connection to this topic and I knew this was something that I wanted to share with others. My goal for this artist book is to show what inner city school have to offer to people who may have uneducated prejudices. I expect the audience to to have a change of heart and hopefully learn that when you hear about the bad things, there’s always good things hiding behind them. While I want the audience to see the good, I made sure not to leave out bad things.

I wanted the audience to start with the viewing of bad things said about the school in question as well as bad things that happened. This is because, as much as we hate it, the bad things that happen also take part in shaping the community within the school. I hope that through my use of a school’s yearbook, viewers will feel a closer connection to the people who attend these schools by the end when they can see all the good things that happen at the school and the good things said about the school. My blog post has a similar set up as the book where I started with something bad that happened and ended with a good statement. I included sections of a video made by the Corcoran senior class of 2017 as a reaction to an incident at the school.

My goal is for the audience to truly understand more about the students outside of things heard on the internet or through gossip. As people I think we focus too much on things we hear and don’t spend the time researching to see if what we heard is the whole story or even true at all. I think this project will help people to take that extra step.

To view the digital content of “More Than Meets the Eye,” click on this hyperlink.