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AbingdonMonument1.jpeg

A Very Public Monument

Lisa Bateman, 2021

Abingdon Square Park  Hudson and W12th St. NYC

October 30 - November 30, 2021-2022

special thanks to artists Denise Hurd and Pierre Epstein

on-site audio installation 

https://www.averypublicmonument.com/

The Blackwell School, 1889-1965 is a historic, segregated hispanic schoolhouse in Marfa, Texas.  Alumni founded The Blackwell School Alliance in 2006 and restored the adobe structure in 2007. *Research and artist project with the Board to create an ongoing Audio project inside the Museum's vernacular architecture and displays. 

 

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The Historic Jarvisburg Colored School 1868-1950, Jarvisburg, NC, perhaps the oldest standing African American School in North Carolina. "Songlines" is a narrative public project inspired by student oral histories: recording southeastern songs from the School's era and those remembered by alumni, 2016-2019. Sponsored by NC Humanities, the Pratt Institute Faculty Fund and Currituck County. Phase One Summer 2019, Phase Two 2021-23

 

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link to Songlines Project

 

NPR WUNC radio June 2019:

 

 

2012-2014 "Next Year" Eastern State Penitentiary, artist installation in cellblock 8 -Prisoners were denied reading material - as they sometimes still are (Banks vs. Beard 2006 Pennsylvania Correction System). A 141 page timeline newspaper is created of each New Year's day Phil, PA front pgs from the years the prison was in operation 1829-1971

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2014 The Banned Book Cart, installation, 2nd iteration:

Pratt Institute Brooklyn Library. Every banned book in the collection is cloaked - loaned for re-circulation- accompanied by bookmarks labled with censorship history and blasphemous excerpts.

2010-11 "The Book Cart"  EIDIA House, Plato's Cave 

Brooklyn.  Local books no longer in circulation, some over 100 yrs. old, are found and saved.  The nomadic life of each book survives only by moving out or returning back into Plato’s Cave. By having the oldest, most geriatric books available to be sub-loaned from the ‘vault’, the objects and stories become re-gifted as antiques, sculptures or reliquaries—adding a ring to the loan cycle and requiring the dutiful act of the Artist to follow each reader.

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+ accompanying text project "What I Remember Most is This" uninked letterpress print 9" x 12" of lost narrative/memory of 1901 short story.
 

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2010-13 Wetlands-Mausolea The New York Savings Bank.  The local New York City economy forces the use of landmark buildings for CVS Drugs and Payless Shoes.  Urban wetlands disappear. Bateman uses public-domain photographs from the Natural Resources Conservation Service as signage, in each image law enforcement figures fail to hold back the floods from neighboring wetlands.

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2008-12  "Arbor Vitae" the 'inflated' greening of the former meatpacking district in lower Manhattan, future home of

the Whitney Museum - once a red, slaughterhouse district and hub for day laborers. Sponsored by the Economic Development Corp NYC, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and the Manhattan Community Art Fund

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2008-12 "Buy Less!"  Lisa Bateman, 'The American Billboard Project', Jarvisburg, NC.  Route 158 runs through Currituck County, south of coastal VA - north of the affluent Outer Banks vacationaland of NC.  Once populated by farmers and sharecroppers, the coastal strip is becoming

a suburban sprawl.  As lifestyles collide in the post-Bush economy, bill-

boards on Rt. 158 are a storyline for wants, desires, fears and politics.

 

2008-12 "The Periscope Project" sponsored by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and Tishman Construction, Inc. 

Bateman's buried reliquary, attached throughTishman's construction fence on Leonard and Broadway is viewed through a Star-Trekian, PVC pipe viewfinder. The experience reclaims an abandoned, intimate neighborhood space in an area of downtown Manhattan experiencing rapid building and a high-rise economy. Hummer H2 and a 1950 Ford sedan are enclosed

 

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2002-03 Shafler Gallery Pratt Institute "Yellow Chemo Project"  interactive yellow 'chemo' table for reconstructing

or re-living cancer experiences, dimensions variable, 14 days May 2003

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2002-2003 "Nicole's Bowl" participatory project/death ritual.  A blue mirror imbedded in rear wall reflects onto a fishbowl containing one lone, white betafish.  When the audience enters the arena their portrait is reversed in the reflection.

for Nicole Carstens 1958-2001

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2000-2001 "Mirari 7" part of the 'Container Project' sponsored by NYC Parks and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.  Two locations NYC included: Lisa Bateman, Dolores Zinny & Juan Maidagan, Alex Villar, Amy Hauft and Judith Barry. Bateman uses the mirror as a facility of spectacle and hyper-real effect of cool, blue saturation in the dead heat of summer. 

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1999-2000 "What She Said"  video 2.23min in Vivisection, Location One, NYC.  A muslim street vendor on Broadway chants Maghrib evening prayers while FBI agents work out in the gym at 26 Federal plaza.

1994-1996 Pratt Area Community Council PACC - 2 projects in separate sites; a mural project with new residents and an architectural ornament project with Pulaski tenants. PACC renovates buildings for moderate-low income housing - in partnership with a Federal Vista grant and the Living Stone Baptist Church, Pulaski Street, Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, NY

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1994-1999 MTA Arts for Tranist, F train, Coney Island Surf Avenue Brooklyn, NY- sponsored by MTA NYC and the NY Aquarium.  Supersat pigments on corrugated fiberglass walls 8' x 140'.  When viewed from a moving subway train undulating water patterns flow towards the Aquarium stairs.

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