CYNTHIA BROTHERS

Cynthia founded Vanishing Seattle in 2016 but is also a nonprofit consultant who has worked in the areas of immigrant rights, online organizing, and arts & culture. Vanishing Seattle documents the disappearing and displaced spaces of Seattle - and celebrates the places that give the city its soul. She's from Seattle and admits to clichés such as playing in bands and once making espresso for a living and is proud that she went to the high school where Bruce Lee first demonstrated his famous “one-inch punch”.

Is this the type of city you want to live in? -Cynthia Brothers

I don't think I really had this like in the grand scheme or even a plan. I think it was just out of this feeling of I need to capture this in some way. And I want to share it. I want to say look at this. This is important and this is going away and you should give a shit about this because it's it's incredible. So I think it came out of this just like urge to share that. And also just like this is happening and that we can't let these spaces and these experiences go quietly into the night. And it's like a way of bearing witness and then sharing to other people who are like oh yeah this place meant something these people meant something to me too. -Cynthia Brothers

But again I think through all of it it's about raising questions and poking some holes around the notions that we have around progress. What that means. What it looks like who gets to determine what progress means and how do we measure it is by you know shiny new things and buildings. Or do we have other things that we value that maybe not might not be about what's new or pretty much about what these places meant to people and communities that were attached to them. And I think a lot of times maybe people don't think about it or they don't know about it. So I'm just trying.-Cynthia Brothers