Spectres of Liberty
Posted May 28, 2008 by jmacphee in Events
Myself, Dara and our friend Olivia have been busting our humps getting ready to realize a giant project we've been working on for over a year, Spectres of Liberty. On this Friday, May 30th, in Troy, NY, we'll be inflating a life size ghost replica of the Liberty Street Church, an important movement center for the Underground Railroad in the 19th century, and one of the first African American churches in Troy. If you are anywhere near the Troy/Albany/Schenectady area on Friday, you should come by, it'll be a once in a lifetime experience!!
Spectres of Liberty
a collaborative project by Olivia Robinson, Josh MacPhee, and Dara Greenwald
May 30th, 2008, 8:30 PM
Liberty Street between 3rd and 4th Streets, Troy, NY
Spectres of Liberty is a public memory, site-specific art project. Beginning with a sense of loss about the changing built environment of Troy NY, we set out imagining ghosts of demolished buildings and structures. Through imagining inflatable sculptural extensions to buildings whose facades have been destroyed to thinking about recreating vanished historic sites, we decided on creating a ghost of the Liberty Street Church. The Liberty Street Church is not only significant as a vanished part of Troy's architectural history, but also for its value as a historic site in the fight to abolish slavery. From old photos of the site provided by the Rensselaer Historical Society, we created an inflatable 1:1 scale reproduction of the church and will be installing it at the former site of the church, which is now a parking lot.We will be animating this ghost church through video projections that call forth the history of the site, as well as through the social context of a cultural event that will bring community members to the site to think more deeply about the space and its history. Through primary and secondary source research about the famous abolitionist reverend of the Liberty Street Church, Henry Highland Garnet, we will also tell part
of the story of efforts to end slavery.
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i want to see some pictures of this!!
Posted by: ixnay at June 7, 2008 9:59 AM