THE ARTS IN NEW YORK CITY Fall 2017 | Baruch College | Macaulay Honors

As I observed three of Ai WeiWei’s pieces, I realized how closed minded societies can be.

Gilded Cage

Gilded Cage

This piece really focuses on engaging the community. We are able to walk through and really interact with the structural this piece specifically focuses on the concept of confinement and the power of repression. This makes the viewers reflect on the outside world and how not all of us are lucky enough to be free and express ourselves freely. Since this piece is located on 5^th avenue, this further shows the wealth that America, and especially New York City, has and how this does not apply to the rest of the world with all its injustice and suffering.

Banner 153

This banner also works to engage the community into reflecting upon the world outside the city and the struggles that refugees face every day. This particular banner shows the face of a refugee from Idomeni (a makeshift camp on the Greek-Macedonian border that was the largest unofficial camp for refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and other “Balkan route” countries). This banner works to show the city’s community a glimpse of the outside world and the tragedy and struggles that thousands upon thousands of refugees’ face.

Banner 130

This banner particularly shows a refugee from the island of Lesvos, Greece (the entry point into Europe that thousands of refugees who fled from Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Senegal, and numerous of other Middle Eastern countries). This banner depicts one of many refugees who have endured perilous journeys in order to survive and works to at least give a glimpse to the New York Community of the struggles that the outside world faces.

My public art project would involve the NYC community to reflect on how they identify themselves and realize how other people may identify themselves. My whole curatorial project revolved around this identity theme with specifics in how Asian Americans identify themselves since they belong to two different worlds, that being questioning whether they identify themselves in the American culture, Asian culture, or both and how to balance it. This public art project thus relates to my curatorial project since it involves identity and how humanity views each other through different perspectives and judgements.

In this public art project, I will be installing mirrors with different quotes written from people describing how they identify themselves all over it. There will be a small middle space to still see yourself. Above this space there is question “who are you?” with bold text. These mirrors will be installed on the posts inside subway stations, bus stations, telephone booths, charging booths, and other commuting stations so there will be a big variety of people that can participate. I feel that having these mirrors around typical commuting areas allow for a great and diverse selection of people that can then get a wider range of results and perspectives.

This engages the community to truly take the time to think about how they identify themselves and how they see themselves while also contemplating how they view other people. This further incorporates how humanity tends to make first impressions visually thus not fully understanding a person, but this project will at least set a beginning step to realizing how first impressions and first judgements aren’t always accurate. People are more than just what they look like or how society boxes them as. This public art project will hopefully at least engage the community to open their eyes to a new perspective even if it is in just a small glance in the mirror.

Claire Ng

This entry was posted on Friday, November 17th, 2017 at 9:06 pm and is filed under Blog #11. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.