In 2021, I was displaced from my apartment in Milwaukee’s Walker’s Point neighborhood, on 5th and Bruce St., when the building was torn down and replaced by a luxury development, Mandel’s Taxco Apartments. I had been living and working in the neighborhood for five years, and the apartment had been my home for the last two of those years.

As the Taxco Apartments building went up throughout the summer, I sporadically shot timelapses of its construction. I then published each timelapse to my personal Instagram account along with a letter from “Bruce,” a practice which allowed me to personify the building’s development as a “he” that was stuck in a liminal space of grief and confusion.

In the middle of the series, I, Adam, (re)introduced myself to Bruce and shared in his grief. We asked for each other’s active presence. We asked each other if we can give time to our writing of new introductions of ourselves, as part of our visible and social transitioning. And we asked what of our past we can take with us to the future. This multimedia inquiry culminated into the project Bruce Meets Adam .

Adam White Ossers (b.1993, transgender man) is an interdisciplinary time-based artist. Adam holds a BFA in Interdisciplinary Art and Technology from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and is an artist-in-residence at Var Gallery and Studios located in Walker’s Point. His works have been mentioned in various media outlets including BmoreArt, 88 Nine Radio Milwaukee, COVID-19 MKE, and Leader-Telegram Entertainment. He is a Creative Content manager at the Milwaukee Artist Resource Network (MARN) located in the Third Ward, and serves on Walker’s Point Center for the Arts board and Marketing Committee.

This iteration of Bruce Meets Adam was produced in collaboration with Woodland Pattern. Visit Adam’s website to see the work in its original form, www.adamkathleen.tech/bruce-meets-adam.