Zenith!

My senior year at Freestyle Academy brought about a new type of project for me: Zenith. Zenith is where you begin to realize your full potential as a freestyler and use all the knowledge you have accumulated over the past two years to create your own project. I created a book last year but I wanted my design to be more compelling and intense for my project. 

I chose to create a digital zine concerning sustainable clothing and awareness of environmental disasters. I chose the 1970’s and 1980’s as my focus. I was inspired by my own friends who surround their lifestyles to better the environment; whether it be by eating vegan or second hand shopping or a combination of both. I was touched by the initiative of the young people in our generation take to take control of their carbon footprint. My goal was to achieve this and create a zine that was both aesthetically beautiful as intriguing to viewers. I want them to question why I created this and google the events I wrote about. Bringing awareness and attention is my single goal for this project.

As I finish my senior year, I have felt the weight of responsibility of adulthood. I have grown to gain appreciation for the way I grew up. I always knew I was “privileged”. But then, in April I took a school trip to Haiti as part of my Haiti solidarity club. My world as I knew it: clean paved streets and working sanitary water systems, was completely absent. As we learned the history of the country I felt shame cover me. America has had a deep history in the responsibility for Haiti’s suffering and halt to progression as a country. I knew that I needed to be more active in my own country, in order to better prepare to help fight in Haiti in the future. This was my inspiration to expose the poetry I was not prepared to show to the world. To juxtapose it against the “America vision” of the 1980’s and 70’s depicted by media.