2018 / New York, NY / Team: Noah Shaye, Pei-Jou Shih, Gabriel Vergara

 

)Net(Working is a short film made for Reading New York Urbanism a required course in the Urban Design master´s program at Columbia GSAPP. The film explores visual stories of streetball in the neighborhood of Harlem. Throughout interviews and conversations with players and users of more than 50 outdoor basketball courts in Harlem, we unpack the important role these places play as social infrastructure. Eric Klinenberg in his book "Palaces For The People", describes athletics fields as "sacred places...where categories and hierarchies that matter so much for social and political life often lose their significance." Basketball courts in NYC become these places that attract people of different backgrounds, and those differences vanish for a "liminal moment."