Revealing Dispossession through Counter-Mapping Exercise
Location: Times Square, Manhattan, New York
This project examines police brutality as a border structure shaped by complex systemic forces, proposing a counter-infrastructure to make these systems legible within Times Square, a hub of capitalism, politics, and diversity. Situated between the NYPD Times Square Center and the U.S. Armed Forces Recruiting Station, the intervention is elevated 30 feet above street level to disrupt the visibility of digital billboards and create a platform for counter-mapping. Through strategically positioned apertures and the light emitted from the billboards, the design interrogates racialized violence, policing, and social injustice, aiming to raise awareness of systemic discrimination and dispossession.
Model | Counter-infrastructure
Research drawings | Echoes of Resistance: The Baton, Redlining, and the Evolution of Racial Injustice in Harlem
Riots that took place from the early 1930s to the late 1960s in central Harlem neighborhood due to redlining and expropriation through the so-called non-lethal weapon, police baton. The augmentation of police brutality and the intensification of racial injustice started to manifest itself through the evolutions of the police baton and the amplifying aftermath of each event
drawing 01 | The Hyper-fragmentation of real estate at times square
The hyper-fragmentation of the real estate at Times Square that potentially leads to the expropriation. The diagram reveals the rampant growth of police surveillance and the over-policing situation at Times Square
drawings | Design intervention
This counter-infrastructure aim to provide a full experience to raise awareness about the seriousness of racial discrimination in policing, criminalization and dispossession, the trivialization of police brutality, and the intensification of social injustice.
Model | Design intervention
Model | Inverted Aperture Model