What does it mean to care for a place?
Stories South of 22nd (SS22.ST) is a digital hub featuring an ongoing collaboration between Sunnyside Foundation (SF), whose mission centers on service to Tucson’s Southside and the University of Arizona, working to bring the Southside’s cultural, historical and speculative imaginaries into the public eye.
This site showcases what re-investment by and for the community looks like on the ground. Together with stakeholders, the collaboration results in an ongoing portfolio of exchanges that SS22.ST documents, including site-specific courses, community storytelling, arts and culture activations and creative making projects that narrate the treasures Southside holds, the caretaking its residents embody and the changes they seek to manifest.
Drawing from a blended “urban humanities” research toolkit from urban planning, design and the humanities, these project build on case studies, visual literacy, archival research, mapping/site plans, site visits, community storytelling, spatial ethnography, pin-ups, community photo-shoots, image co-creation, co-curation, modeling, and other methods to bring the stories South of 22nd to life.
“And I think that’s what has guided me. That where I’m from, and what we do, and what my family is, that we’re not outliers in this society. That there’s a presence there. And I think that’s been a very important guide for me. It’s got me through some good times, and it’s got me through some bad times. The sense that you’re from somewhere, that you have a place. And it doesn’t have to be geographical, it can be a lot of things. I think the center kind of gave us, a lot of us young folk at the time, an excuse to experiment. You know, that maybe art and politics are not separated, maybe art and community are not different things.”
- Congressman Raúl Grijalva, March 2023,
PAH Classroom Visit, Center for Creative Photography