Faces painted onto cinder blocks lined the grass. Faces painted onto the sidewalks trampled under scuffed shoes.
“They’re headstones,” I said, pointing at one of the cinder blocks, with a faded yellow rotary phone on top of it.
During our placement, Jillian took us to view the Heidelberg Project. Even though this experience occurred with Jillian, it occurred outside of the mundanity of our office space. Plastic tables and brightly colored chairs were replaced with piles of forgotten toys, and lawns overgrown with wildflowers and weeds.
When I initially visited the Heidelberg Project, I couldn’t understand why so many people flocked to see piles of filthy stuffed animals, or houses covered in polka dots. Mostly because I couldn’t understand what the art was trying to say. A clock with a pair of panties nailed onto it was just that, a clock with a pair of panties nailed to it.
Visiting it this time around, I can’t pretend that I was converted and suddenly understand the ~ deep ~ meaning behind the Heidelberg Project. But I saw little glimpses of humanity that made sense to me. The Headstones being one of them. How many mothers had to bury their children too young to see the darkness inside of a grave? How many children had to bury the love and security that was their parents?
An old house, charred down to nothing but the basement, reminded me of the news clips of Iraq that I’ve grown up seeing. Looking at the house was like looking at remnants of the 2003 Invasion, or remnants that ISIS left behind. Blue shoes littered on the floor of the basement made me think of the death of blue collar America.
“Look at that, you do understand it!” Jillian said, after I pitched blue collar America theory. “You should be a tour guide here.”
But more than likely, I probably shouldn’t. Because while the Heidelberg Project seemed more like a grave to me than anything, what our trip said to me was that most people probably don’t understand the whole of the Heidelberg Project, but there are enough parts of it that they do understand that make them feel some sort of humanity.
