Homeless Art Gallery 1 Favorite 

Practitioner: 

Date: 

Jul 19 2009

Location: 

Staten Island, New York

During 2008-2009, when the United States was entering a recession, the idea of the Homeless Art Gallery was popping up across Staten Island, New York City's least populated borough and biggest underdog. This is an example of art intervention, disrupting space to question the economic and political systems of capitalism. It was also an excellent community building project.

The Homeless Art Gallery of Staten Island used various parks (Silver Lake Park, in the video here) to showcase local art and music to the public. It was an idea that came out of SicoLab (Staten Island Collaboration), a collective of artists of a large variety of ages and mediums that created alternative spaces for art making, networking, and sharing. Basically, the idea was to encourage artists to make things with each other and share commonly needed resources independent of the formal gallery system (since Staten Island does not have many formal art galleries to begin with).

The Homeless Art Gallery played upon the political and economic uncertainties of the time. The Gallery led to other happenings, such as Bridge the Gap, Van Duzer Days and the Second Saturday Staten Island art walk.

Posted by mwestARTS on

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