Listening to a lecture early in the semester on the differences between arboreal and rhizomatic root structures left me with a basement schematic for project number one. Knowing that all I had were floor plans, I started thinking and asking. Those questions and the conversations that followed led me down two different alleys. The first came out of the mouths and habits of a group of Austin teenagers. As a youth pastor I can't help but find myself flooded in the lives, culture, and media of the students I do life with. They fancy themselves artsy and vintage. It's a group personality trait that you pick up quick and grow to adore. Fridays are spent at movies with high school football players. Wednesdays have theatre kids, music, and guitar lessons. Sundays have Bible study with sophomores interested in social justice. Regardless of the topic, age, or social stature of the student that I spend time with, they show you themselves very slowly and creatively. From the conversations over cups of coffee that I've lost count of, to the nights spent talking at restaurants until they mop the floor, the sense that I've gotten from every student is the same. They hunger for community. It's a very strong yearning, that over time reveals itself as nothing short of a soul salivation to love and be loved. It's an acquired taste that I've picked up from them. To be taught communal value from cheerleaders, lacrosse midfielders, world of warcraft experts, garage band aficionados, and punk rock princesses has proven both gorgeous and humbling. So, for them, I wanted to make the first project a touchable manifestation of what they've taught me.

I had the ideas of community and thoughts of rhizomatic mushroom roots in my quiver at this point. I lacked a medium and disruptive technology up until a week before it was due. Checking the ACTlab website I saw the advertisement for "Learn Something Awesome" and the mission statement it seemed to champion filled in the remaining pieces of my presentation. All I could think of for the next 24 hours was how beautiful the idea of everyone "sharing abilities" looked in my head. Feeling a bit like a communist at heart, I made a phone call to a photographer friend of mine and started asking questions about Polaroid cameras. It was here that another cue came to me from high school hallways. A movement is happening inside the youth group I work with that has led to a vintage technology starting to disrupt the major digital camera manufacturers of the world. It seems odd to me, but the kids I know don't want more pixels. They seem to burn for pictures that are more or less instant and a camera whose theme song might be "The Wonder Years" tune. Polaroid has found a home with them. And students who don't have to pay rent can scrounge up the fifteen dollars it takes to get 20 exposures of 600 speed Polaroid film. It's gorgeously counterintuitive. And it gave me a medium for project one.

A dozen or so chalkboard conversations later, (I have a 7ft. by 4ft. piece of wood framed schoolhouse beauty hanging on my wall) I had my plan. I procured myself a buddy's polaroid and I got on the phone with my subject community. The pretty ladies that make up the finished product are good friends of mine and an example to all that know them of authentically loving community. They live in relationships with one another that could be seen as the type of community Jesus Christ asked his followers to model to the world. From the Norman Rockwell-esque situations (making dinner for one another, praying with one another before meals, etc.) to the deeper, and less sexy side of things (loving each other and giving grace when they're pissed, putting their friends desires before their own, etc) these friends are a living and breathing picture of what I call rhizomatic community. So I took my camera and my idea to their house to draw what they lived out on tiny square pictures. But I figured that any legit photographer paid their subjects, so a 12 pack of shiner and cheap bottle of Blackstone merlot later, I had the girls picture ready.

They eat, sleep, talk, and spend huge chunks of time on their couch underneath the stairs. This proved to be the best way to encapsulate communal living. The girls I love posed themselves and I measured out and drew a line of tape on the floor in front of them that would act as my guide. Everything after was putting a polaroid puzzle together. Slender female limbs and throw pillows bled into connecting photos that, once finished, fit together to show the entire living room. I suppose the best way to sum up my goal is to say that I wanted to have each picture hold its own inherent value if taken away from the mosaic, yet, when placed back in its home it revealed a more complete shot. (Much like the mushroom that, once plucked, grows again because of the support of its conjoined brother and sister roots) After a few retakes and the time it took to eat the brownies they made me, I left the house and their little family to return to its regular uninterrupted state. All that remained was hours of polaroid scanning, Bible verse treading, a deeper study of Jungian philosophy, and grunt work with my brother on final cut pro in order to capture with video what I felt was sitting on my pin-cushioned photo canvas. A video that would show in detail what I think Jung said, "lives beneath the surface." It came out being just what I wanted: A short film that made Polaroid Rhizomography understandable, and that documented authentic community being lived out for all who watched.

I loved this project for the same reason that I love what Aimy does with "Learn Something Awesome." I told her, during my presentation, that what she is doing was hard but truly necessary. She's offering the gift of community to anyone who wishes to accept it. (A concept that I feel is one of the most worthwhile endeavors to give one's time to) I would truly feel that all the time that was poured into computers and a polaroid camera would be deemed worthy if one person who saw the project felt a stirring inside of them to seek out the type of community that the girls in the speedway house live, and the type that Aimy offers as a gift. I think Jung and Jesus were absolutely right. Community is necessary, like breath. And completely possible.