PROJECTS
The Architecture of Structural Violence
An ongoing documentary and research initiative exploring the relationship between school closures, urban disinvestment, and the built environment in Baltimore. Combining spatial analysis, historical mapping, policy inquiry, and visual storytelling, this project examines how systems shape communities, distribute opportunity, and reinforce inequality across space and time. Each picture tells a story of space, policy, and silence
Schools, Space
& Silence
OVERVIEW
What happens when policies designed to shape cities also shape who is left behind?
In Baltimore, redlining, urban renewal, disinvestment, and school closures have reshaped neighborhoods and educational opportunity for generations. What often appear to be neutral policy decisions are deeply connected to broader systems governing housing, education, and land use—systems that distribute resources and opportunity unevenly across communities. Over time, these patterns produce lasting consequences: educational instability, neighborhood decline, displacement, and institutional withdrawal within already marginalized communities.
The film examines how these repeated outcomes become embedded within the physical and social structure of the city itself. When harm is reproduced consistently across time and place, we begin to understand the architecture of structural violence.
GOAL/PURPOSE
This documentary explores how redlining, urban renewal, disinvestment, and school closures have shaped educational opportunity and community stability in Baltimore. Using community-engaged inquiry, the film centers the lived experiences of educators, students, families, and community members while connecting those stories to the city’s broader history of spatial inequality and structural violence.
KEY THEMES
Structural Violence, Spatial Inequality, School Closures, Disinvestment & Redlining
DURATION
45-60 minutes
