Rising above Highway 41 near downtown Fresno, California, the Overpass connects two working class neighborhoods. I have driven under the overpass for years, with my attention being drawn to the anonymous silhouettes passing by overhead. Who are the people who use the Overpass, and for what purposes? 

 

What I discovered during my time spent on the Overpass in 2011 is a self-contained world of play, commerce, social interaction and transit. Space is used as a playground and a social gathering space. It is space shared by children, families, gang members and vendors. I was struck by the nature of this space as a floating world, connected to, yet separate from, the cars which speed by just several yards below.

 

Though the Overpass acts as a connector in one sense, it also takes on the role of border in both a spatial and social sense. Cutting perpendicular to the highway, the Overpass is a division of the world of the auto below and the implications held within, and the slower paced, hidden, and often misunderstood world of the poor above. 

 

Like many spaces, the Overpass acts as a dividing line between groups. This project seeks to open this hidden world and invite us to reconsider those who fall outside of our spatial realm. 

 

—Jonathan Mathis,
Fresno, California

April 2012