CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 6/6/2017

The only thing that you’ve got is people along the way who are going to help you, that’s it.

Mark Bradford (2017 U.S. representative at the Venice Biennale) in the produce garden of the Venice women’s prison in 2016, alongside two members of the Rio Tera dei Pensieri social cooperative, which Bradford included in his monumental project. “At Rio Tera I gave a slide presentation: I showed me working in the hair salon, I showed slides of my friends, I showed me and my mom on a ladder painting the walls of a $200 place that we’d rented. I made sure they understood that I did not graduate from high school, that I did not do the things that would prepare me to be anything other than marginalized.… Maybe that’s why I treat people as family because I understand anybody who’s trying to make their way from the margin to closer to the center of power. Whether it’s personal power, economic power, or educational power, you feel like a refugee. You are alone. It ain’t your family going to help you—honey, you’re on your own. You’re standing at the bus stop and you hop on a bus. The only thing that you’ve got is people along the way who are going to help you, that’s it."