Our Mission
OddYard is a student-run, independently funded publication that strives to provide an interaction between art and the city. We want to understand, analyze, and apply urban design and architecture to our everyday lives. One objective is to learn and research; take in all the necessary information to be well equipped and informed for our environment, to design, to build. We hope to take and apply this information to research, writing and art, creating a product whose language is understandable.
Because we are new to this topic of research, green in the field of urban design, we decided to focus on the needs of ourselves and our peers. Our research, art and writing is aimed at building a framework for change in the urban environment; looking at ways to shift the relationship between planner and user. Our observations on how people interact with the urban environment is the base for our research. Our work is starting small with the intent to widen in scope.
Above all, we aim to display as broad a spectrum of people and issues as possible. We will purposefully use this medium for voices of POC, people living with disabilities, LGBTQIA+, and others whose voices have been marginalized in the history of Western urban design.
With this in common, members of OddYard step forward to become engaged and active within the urban environment through art, action, research and writing.
American Beauty
By: Lily Hemminger
These are the gems of our nation
Is this what my ancestors envisioned when they
left for rows and rows of sunkissed fruits
A gas station as a place to gather
I dread the drive back home that breaks the urban facade
It shows me my life for what it was
I cannot escape the fenced-in vacant lots when they laugh and
Remind me how little they are loved
I cannot escape the few animals, dead or alive in these urban deserts that
Remind me of times I try to forget
In vain I attempt to capture their invasive words in back of my mind
I pray others are able to hear
Featured here we see:
Powerlines flying over backyards, streets, homes
A warning sign
The old Sizzler’s my theater teacher used to love
Jesus in the middle of nowhere
A smog-like haze that follows these photos, no matter the lengths I travel to escape it
An oversized load (I didn’t know they delivered trees with roots)
Good old American spirit
Relentless efforts of humans to beautify pockets of civilization
A cow, a deer, and a mouse (and an elephant in the haze)
