Community Involvement

The first JAI explored a model where artists in various cities responded to the same theme, creating unique artist interpretations. This time, a curatorial committee led by High Line Art, and including Buffalo Bayou and Atlanta Beltline staff, wanted to explore how individual communities come together to build a collective piece of art. Starting with the idea of Exquisite Corpse (or cadavre exquis), the team explored a few options before deciding that with logistical, cost and time constraints, a film medium would work best. The overall theme of creating cross-community conversations remained at the core. The curatorial team also grappled with the idea of how parks that may not have finished spaces could participate, and the idea of choosing a film medium allowed more Network members to consider participating. After multiple discussions, the team decided to commission Ezra Wube, who would work with each site to create sections of a collaborative stop-motion film. Ezra’s work, known for its exploration of urban diversity and climate change, was selected for its ability to capture both the unique characteristics of each site and histories through community participation.

In each city, the same set process was used to work with Ezra Wube over a period of five days. The High Line supported all costs related to artist fees, final documentation, and provided overall project management across sites. Each participating site was responsible for the costs tied to the site-specific work required by artist Ezra Wube, as well as production expenses for staging the exhibit and related programming.