Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Soldiers' and Veterans' Memorial


This is the second example of art creating a social space that I stumbled upon in New York City on My 29th. As we were walking back from Wasshington Square Park towards the Meat Packing District and Chelsea, I noticed this fence that was completely covered with different small scale pieces of art. The fence was located beside a pocket park at 1 Jackson Square. There were a number of onlookers inspecting the artwork, so I walked over for a closer look. It turns out that the fence had been covered with tile-sized homages and prayers for soldiers and veterans that serve or served for our country. Many were hand-made versions of the American flag, but others were various anti-war messages or doves of peace or ideas along those lines. The on-lookers, while none of them had stopped there check out the art together, had struck up a conversation with one another nonetheless. I overheard two girls discussing how one had a husband overseas now and the other had a cousin who had just returned from his second deployment overseas. I could tell that it was a quite emotional and touching experience for the two to have crated this impromptu social space in such a way. I definitely feel that the art was totally responsible for this social space being created at the time and place that it happened.

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