212 4 212
guerrilla public art project in the neighborhoods I grew up in from the Lower East Side to the East Village, NYC
September 2023 —

Large-scale protectors placed on construction sites during the city's ongoing & intentional housing crisis. Referencing the grammar of desire and endearment in personal ads and Manhattan’s original area code, the title states the endless love, commitment, and searching of “New Yorkers for New York.“

The protectors are placed on sites of personal resonance that are in different stages of construction and “development”— from recently zoned for demolition, to digging/excavation, to active build.

The protectors offer embodied witness of the housing crisis. Their grief and expression ranges from grounded, serene, knowing, to haunt, frenzy, wandering, mourning, rage, and hostility. Each of their bodies has skin of a map of the neighborhood. Their energy is meant to feel regal, present, and connected.

Made on tarp with sharpie, the guardians are durable to all weather conditions. These working-class materials are also often used for construction.

Placing protectors directly on construction sites is meant as a direct action towards alchemy. They are reverent of the land itself, and of all of us affected by the housing crisis, precarity, and displacement.

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2nd & 2nd

11th & 3rd

Clinton & E Broadway

Houston b/w A & B

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