Dylan Yarbrough
& Arnold Mireles Academy

Dylan Yarbrough & Arnold Mireles Academy

This ongoing documentary project is in partnership with CPS Lives, a Chicago-based organization that pairs artists with Chicago Public Schools. Arnold Mireles Academy, my school partner, is an elementary & middle school located on the South Side of Chicago. CPS Lives assigned this school and helped me go through the vetting and background checks necessary to work with school children. 

When reflecting on my experience in public school, the thing that resonated most with me was my experience with school mentors. I had people to look up to outside of my family that changed the trajectory of my life. I had a troubled childhood and experienced a lot of trauma. Unfortunately, I had to process that trauma at school while trying to navigate a standardized educational system. I feel like my life had a dark trajectory. My counselor, art teacher, English teacher, and history teacher showed me a path. 

I shared my experience with Principle Robins, my contact at the school. We had a great conversation about the pedagogy and mission of Arnold Mireles Academy, which includes programming to help children process trauma in the classroom. Principle Robins plans events, such as a petting zoo, to allow kids to have healing experiences. For me, after growing up in the south, a petting zoo feels somewhat benign. However, for a child growing up on the south side, this might be their first interaction with an animal that’s not a pet. The excitement and curiosity of connecting with these animals can be healing for stress, fear, and anxiety. 

Arnold Mireles Academy recently launched a mentor/mentee program that pairs school faculty with students. I organized meetings with the faculty and students to come together, have their portraits made, and talk about mentorship. This body of work compares photographs of spaces within the school campus with diptych portraits of mentors & mentees. By pairing portraits together, we can see the young mentees occupying the same space as the older mentors. This direct comparison brings up ideas of time, generations, cycles of life, and the things we pass on to one another. I hope that this project inspires mentorship, dialogue, and healing.