the shelter’s surrounding area used to have a significant african american population. while this population has largely moved away to other areas of the city, several predominantly african american churches remain: st. paul missionary baptist church and st. james african methodist episcopal (ame) church are both located close to the brt line on san antonio st.
in reaching out to this community, we learned about “church hats”, a tradition of wearing ornate hats to sunday mass and especially on high holidays. we documented this tradition in a community photo shoot at st. paul missionary baptist church on march 2nd 2014. the photos of the hats and their owners were abstracted into silhouettes and applied to the windscreen and ceiling. hat boxes pattern the ground pavers.
pattern concept development with corinne takara; information provided by vernice carter and the community of st. paul missionary baptist church
