Adrianne O'Neal
Pronouns: She / Her / Hers
BFA Interior Design
Artist Statement
The Geter Heritage home preserves the Black history and culture of the West Philadelphian neighborhood, historically known as the Black Bottom. This home serves as a vessel that explores what is lost when Black American communities lose their sense of ownership and physicality in the freedom of having space. The Geter Heritage house archives the footprint of a Black Bottom row home and conserves the original family’s legacies. This work serves as a stance of resistance that is rooted in challenging the gentrification of Black societies and their homes.
A tender design approach that looks to the original roots and culture will allow the Heritage house to pay homage to its long lineage of each generation once residing in the home and celebrate the Black community it exists in. Through a personal and intimate lens, this home will become a model for restoring community and Black neighborhoods that have experienced disposition and eraser due to exploitation and deracination.
About the Artwork
I studied community displacement and the sense of ownership through the design of a Philadelphia row home that has belonged to the Geter family since the beginning of the Great Migration. The neighborhood’s historical timeline of disposition considers the conflicts of developing a new area vs. what is at risk when ridding of the old.
IMAGE GALLERY
Click through to enlarge and view individual artworks from Adrianne's thesis project.
