NYC DOT Selects Five Artists to Create Five Public Artworks Across the Five Boroughs

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IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 31, 2024
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NYC DOT Selects Five Artists to Create Five Public Artworks Across the Five Boroughs

Selected Artists Are Designing and Installing Temporary, Site-Specific Public Artworks on NYC DOT Infrastructure in Collaboration With Community-Based Organizations

NEW YORK - New York City Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez today announced the selection of artists to create five temporary, site-specific public artworks on NYC DOT infrastructure in each of the five boroughs. The work is overseen by NYC DOT Art through its Community Commissions initiative in which the agency collaborates with community-based organizations to commission artists to design and install temporary, site-responsive public art. The art is installed in plazas, medians, triangles, overpasses, and pedestrianized asphalt spaces. Artists were selected through the Community Commissions open call based on artistic merit and strong proposals that demonstrated a connection to the site's cultural context and the partner organization's mission. Community-based organizations were selected from a 2023 RFP for their mission and vision in welcoming art that celebrates their communities. This iteration marks the return of this initiative for the first time since 2020. The program began in 2008 with the inception of NYC DOT Art.

"Public art makes our shared public spaces more vibrant and welcoming, and can even improve street safety," said NYC DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez. "Community Commissions is a one-of-a-kind initiative that improves our public spaces while amplifying and supporting artists and local organizations. I applaud each one of these selected artists for using their creative vision to help beautify our streetscape."

"Art has the power to bring people together, to make our public spaces more vibrant and livable, and to empower residents to express their neighborhood's unique character," said NYC Department of Cultural Affairs Commissioner Laurie Cumbo. "I'm so excited to work with DOT on the return of this extraordinary public art program, which gives artists and communities the opportunity to collaborate on remarkable installations in all five boroughs."

The first of the five projects is a recently-completed asphalt art mural on Victory Boulevard and Corson Avenue on Staten Island. Completed at the end of September through a collaboration with partner organization On Your Mark and artist Mollie Hosmer-Dillard, the installation is titled 'Public Access.' The asphalt art mural combines an infinity symbol and other shapes created in collaboration with members of On Your Mark, a Staten Island-based community organization dedicated to providing innovative and comprehensive community-based service to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities across their lifespan, along with colors inspired by the Disability Pride Flag. It aims to bring the social and cultural context of adults with disabilities being served by On Your Mark into daily pedestrian life. The new artwork not only beautifies the new pedestrian space, but also serves as a nearby extension to the organization's community-based programming to provide innovative and comprehensive community-based services to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

The Community Commission titled 'Public Access' is currently on display at Victory Boulevard and Corson Avenue

The remaining community commissions are anticipated to be completed by summer 2025.

NYC DOT partners with community-based organizations that participate throughout all phases of the Community Commissions project development, including artist selection, design evolution, community engagement and outreach, fabrication, installation, maintenance, and other project related tasks.

NYC DOT will display artworks for up to 11 months at designated community sites.

Selected Community Commissions Projects

Bronx

Artist: Yafatou Sarr

Artist bio: Yafatou Sarr is a Bronx-based textile artist from The Gambia. Her work spans crochet, weaving, and sewing, creating both functional pieces and public art installations that reflect her African heritage and her local community. Yafatou transforms traditional craft techniques into contemporary designs, sharing her artistic vision through collaborative public art projects with the Concourse House community where Yafatou was previously a resident mother.

Partner Organization: Concourse House, Home for Women and Their Children

Site: Sidewalk at Grand Concourse and East Fordham Road

Brooklyn

Artist: Alumbra

Artist bio: Alumbra is a Latina women-led collective of artists, educators, and community organizers, with members spread between the US and Mexico collaborating with youth in marginalized neighborhoods to create responsive, site-specific artistic light installations that transform underused community spaces into safe, creative places, bringing neighbors together at night. The team recognizes the power of open-air public spaces to strengthen cohesion when designed and built with community members.

Partner Organization: I AM CARIBBEING

Site: Pedestrian space at Washington Avenue and Empire Boulevard

Manhattan

Artist: Fitgi Saint-Louis

Artist bio: Fitgi Saint-Louis is a multidisciplinary artist based in Harlem, NY. Her work considers the layered and intertwined nature of identity, remembrance and community within African, American and Caribbean cultures. Appearing in paint, textiles and sculpture, her abstracted figures honor the multifaceted ancestry of the African diaspora. With a background in design, Saint-Louis utilizes form and color to present Black figures in vibrant and contemplative imagery.

Partner Organization: West Harlem Art Fund

Site: Sidewalk median located at Lenox Avenue and 124th Street

Queens

Artist: IMAGINE (aka Sneha Shrestha)

Artist bio: IMAGINE (aka Sneha Shrestha) is a Nepali artist who incorporates her native language and meshes the aesthetics of Sanskrit scriptures with graffiti influences. She has shown her meditative works in several exhibitions, commissioned works and public walls around the world from Kathmandu to Boston.

Sneha's painting Home416 was recently acquired into the Permanent Collection of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston making her the first contemporary Nepali artist to ever be acquired in the history of the MFA.

Partner: Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art

Site: Diversity Plaza at Roosevelt Avenue and Broadway

Staten Island

Artist: Mollie Hosmer-Dillard

Artist bio: Mollie Hosmer-Dillard is a painter working in the field of social practice. She has a BA from Oberlin College and an MFA from Indiana University. Mollie's recent artistic research investigates working with communities to create large-scale 'multi-vocal' paintings, images that celebrate a diversity of visual art styles and challenge traditional Western art's emphasis on the isolated individual. As part of her social practice work, Mollie has worked extensively with incarcerated people, unhoused people, seniors, people with cognitive and physical disabilities, and immigrant youth.

Partner: On Your Mark

Site: Asphalt pedestrian space at Victory Boulevard and Corson Avenue

About NYC DOT Art

New York City Department of Transportation Art (NYC DOT Art) partners with community-based not-for-profit organizations and professional artists to display temporary public art on NYC DOT property throughout the five boroughs for up to 11 months. Artists transform streets with colorful murals, dynamic projections, and eye-catching sculptures. A variety of public spaces serve as canvases for temporary arts, including sidewalks, fences, triangles, medians, bridges, jersey barriers, step streets, public plazas, and pedestrianized spaces. Since 2008, NYC DOT Art has produced over 450 temporary artworks citywide. For more information, visit nyc.gov/dotart and @nyc_DOTArt on Instagram.

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