txt=What does it mean to be "Looking for Hope?" With his photo-documentary work on the lives of urban schoolchildren, Matt O'Brien suggests that his young subjects have something to reach for despite the daily hardships that frustrate and confound them. His images depict the joy and weightlessness of childhood in his portraits of youth at play where the most pressing concern appears to be the arc and speed of the jump rope as it swings to their feet.

The photographs' captions, which are provided by the youth themselves, clearly reveal the more complicated realities of their lives beyond school. On the other side of the schoolyard fence these children are facing large concerns about violence and destitution in the world that surrounds them. 

The visual portraits suggest that these youth are bound to each other as they look for hope, yet the annotations written in the first person singular provide the critical and solitary context for this hope. This dual perspective glosses the very problematic and necessary act of looking for hope: on the one hand, the images are genuinely hopeful, yet on the other, as the captions suggest, hope is illusory. 

In taking note of this, it is clear that as viewers, we too, are looking for hope while being confronted by the knowledge of how far we must go to realize our anticipation. The biggest mistake, however, would be to deny this tension and either look away or ignore the captions. The isolation of urban youth is only exacerbated when we turn our backs. This is true even for those of us who personally face the urban conditions that these youth describe. 

In looking at this work we see a new clarity on the dimensions of our struggle and a motivation to seek change. From whatever angle we approach these images, O'Brien's focus matters. His photographs refuse to merely skirt the borders of urban communities, and they resist the possibility of looking somewhere else. Rather, he points to the isolation and concentration of minority youth in urban centers. 

Look again at O'Brien's photographs and read the text. In these portraits we see the results of industrial change that moved capital away from inner cities over the last half of the century. We see the effects of demographic shifts that followed new job growth outside the city core and motivated the suburbanization of white middle class America. And we see a sector of the population that struggles in isolation with issues of race, class, and conflict. The photographs reveal these economic and social dynamics by capturing those who have been left behind in the struggle for resources. They show a largely minority urban population, a marginal urban infrastructure, and a segregated public school. 

This is an accurate view of urban America, and it is one we must come to terms with if we are to have hope. As we look into these lives, we must not maintain the privileged position of an outside viewer looking in on another world. Our act of looking for hope entails a loss of innocence, perhaps, but it is also a genuine achievement of hope, for we are forced to recognize this world as our own, and we are asked to transform it. 


<b>Lizbet Simmons</b>
Assistant Professor
San Francisco State University
Criminal Justice Studies

Lecturing Professor
University of California, Berkeley
Graduate School of Education