Storyville: in love, in memory (Work-in-Progress)

By Drew Swedberg & Shalon Buskirk

A mediative, collage-like portrait of life in the midst of ongoing loss and erasure, in love, in memory traces the everyday movements of a mother gathering cherished memories of her son and unearthing interrelated stories of violence in her hometown. Shalon Buskirk’s advocacy orbits around her firstborn son, Parris Jerome Lane, whose murder in 2017 marked the end of an unprecedented year of gun violence and housing instability in Allentown, Pennsylvania. To memorialize her son and connect his story to the enduring systemic racism of a post-Industrial city, Shalon collaborates with an intergenerational ensemble of Black women. An artist pens a poem for Parris, a historian sifts through Allentown’s haunting legacy of housing discrimination, and an activist struggles to remember her trailblazing battle for fair housing in the 1960s. in love, in memory refracts these revolving scenes of artistic intervention, collective storytelling, and tender remembrance through a prism of passing time.