Art in the Parks

Description:

As part of an inaugural collaboration to integrate the arts into civic life called CivLabs, Arts East New York and the New York City Department of City Planning (Brooklyn) have teamed up to activate Success Garden on Livonia Avenue in East New York. Artists Walis Johnson and Paul Sue Pat collaborate to create East New York: We Walk in a Field of Dreams, a socially engaged multi-media art installation that incorporates community oral histories, a labyrinth walk and sculptural creations. It explores the past and future of East New York, a predominantly African-American and Puerto Rican middle and working class neighborhood in Brooklyn long neglected by the city, now on the verge of enormous change as a result of city rezoning. It considers neighborhood history, hopes and dreams and the persistence of residents and institutions who have served as community place-keepers and healers in spite of many obstacles.

Working sustainably with materials already present in the garden the artists create an interactive sculptural “shrine” that incorporates East New York oral history recordings by Sarita Daftary-Steel from her East New York Oral History Project of the neighborhood’s vibrant immigrant past, the destructive practices of redlining, block-busting, and economic exclusion. The shrine becomes a place for reflection in preparation to walk the Red Line Labyrinth using thematic prompts to focus the mind and heart in meditation. Created from old shoes, The Labyrinth, poetically embodies footsteps of a resilient people who have come, gone or still reside in East New York. As people emerge from the Labyrinth, they enter into a new space, a field of tall grasses and flowers that speak of hope and with luck, a brighter future. Participant reflections are collected and displayed in the garden rain shed.