Riley Natalova: Don’t Make a Scene

New York City has always been THE place for exuberant artists to flock together. Wearing torn leather jackets and fraying shoelaces, radicalizing and terrorizing the masses for decades; the local DIY-ers have created a space for creation and destruction. Counter-culture is always evolving to fit changing generational contention but the overarching need for autonomy while still having community will always be reflected in the scene. I am not a musician, I can’t scream my disappointments with our dying world tossed away at the drowning youth. I can’t preach for a revolution when I can barely stay awake, beaten down with repercussions of illnesses proclaimed not to be real. I am my community, a projection of the kooky guitarists with long greasy hair and soft-spoken drummers with toothy grins. Through my work I document the electrifying energy of the stage, or in this case often more likely the grimy floor of a basement. I document our lives off the stage, cooking community dinners, recording EPs, frolicking the city streets at odd hours of the night, capturing whatever else young adults without direction do. Growing up in NYC is an experience outsiders can’t fully understand, dynamics of city life figured out by an 11-year-old alone on the subway or 15-year-olds roaming Tompkins Square Park. The DIY scene was built by city kids; creative, resilient, and unmistakably human.