There is nothing I believe in more than the ability for art to build, nourish, enrich, and transform our communities. When I reflect on this project, I think back to an essay written by Mary Karr about T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. This essay, when talking about the poem, and I will paraphrase here, says, what the poem does is it brings together a community of like sufferers and it gives that community the conviction to live their lives. To not just exist, but to come together and to live with—

earnesty,

    authenticity,

        and conviction.

This project we launched in Chicago in February 2020, exists for the purpose of articulating fire, of stoking fire within the lives of others, to stimulate the conviction of, I am not alone. I am part of a whole, and this community I exist within contains the power of a wildfire. That this wildfire community has the strength to grow, to burn down silos, to take loneliness and make it ash in the palm of our hands. The mythology of the flame reflects on concepts of rebirth, beginning again, starting anew. And what we are creating here is not only something to destroy feelings of unbelonging, but to rebuild a more inclusive and healthy future.




When I say, floral furnace I mean little lavender light, I mean a fire drenched in flowers. When you hit a box of matches with a hammer they all light at once. When I set my wardrobe on fire in the desert I heard a siren go off in my mind. No I didn’t actually, I couldn’t hear the siren above the screams, no I couldn’t hear the screams because my skin muffled the sound, and in this moment—my wings twitched beneath my overcoat*.




People are birds . . . with wings ingrown* is a sentiment that, I think, connects us all. Frida Kahlo said, There is nothing worth more than laughter. It is strength to laugh, to abandon oneself. To be light. Tragedy is the most ridiculous thing. When I reflect on laughter I find a home. Within this project, laughter is an entry point. Beauty is an entry point. Poetry is an entry point. Those entry points lead you down hallways of pain, struggle, trauma and eventually get you through doorways of light levity strength. The experience of this project is an all encompassing and endless journey toward community building, toward self discovery, toward healing.

Sophia Stopper
the neighbors
director
March 2020

*A reference to
Anne Carson’s
novel written in verse,
Autobiography of Red.