Braddock Youth Project

The application for summer youth employment is out!

It can be found at: www.jobs4summer.org

On a blustery, not-quite-spring day, the BYP Media Team took to the parking lot behind the Nyia Page Community Center to artistically disfigure a small stack of National Geographic magazines. This was accomplished by exposing them to judicious amounts of Citrasolv, an all-natural (and, as you might have deduced, citrus-based) concentrated liquid cleaner. I learned about this process here.

The Citrasolv dissolves the inks on the magazine pages. After about twenty minutes, one pulls apart the magazine (the binding is the first thing to go), and searches for interesting results. There’s no predicting what will react best; many images don’t react at all. But you get some fantastic results.

In some instances, the process mildly alters the original image, which can still be readily seen.

Often times the original image is completely obliterated, however, resulting in a completely abstract image.

The way the Citrasolv lands on the paper can produce many interesting contrasting textures and results.

It is important to work on this in a fairly open and well-ventilated area. This project smells like you’re trapped in a giant orange. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, however, depends on your own personal likes and dislikes.