THE “NEW” NEW YORKER

Shifting perspective on pests in New York city

There are significant number of rats and raccoons in New York city. With their growing population, they are more and more hated as pests. However, they take habitat in urban city because of our lifestyle. How we leave trash on the street attracts them, and how we destroy nature forces animals to move to the city. They already have a life structure in the city, just like us humans. This project is aimed to shed a new light on them as a fellow New Yorker, map out their habitat, and inform some of the things we can do to safely coexist.

I used face painting as a visualization and painted each animals on New Yorker’s faces. We brought the model to the actual area that has high population density of those animals to take the pictures. As a final product, I made “The New Yorker” magazine using the pictures as a cover to represent each animals as true New Yorkers.