Susan Wides - Visual Artist | Environmental Art - I, Manahatta




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Voice of Silence I
Voice of Silence II
And something happens to the light
This: seasons
Arachnoid
I, Kaaterskill
I, Manahatta
Fresh Kills
Mobile Views
The Name of And
Waxworld
Books

I, Manahatta is an exploration of the perception of place at a transformative moment in New York City’s physical and cultural landscape (1997-2014)—from Giuiliani’s building boom, to the paused constructions during the recession, and culminating in the city’s accelerating luxury homogenization during the Bloomberg years.

The series documents not only the dramatic physical shifts in the cityscape, but the nuanced dimensions of how we, as spectators,
perceive and interact with the complex topography of our urban sphere on social, economic, and physical levels. It imagines the city landscape as an organic entity of complex and vibrant histories that reflect back a version of our selves. I was moved by this intimate dynamic and by our passionate desire to, as Baudelaire wrote, “be in our environment, in the heart of the multitude…in the midst of the fugitive and the infinite.”

From Liberty Island [December 2, 2005]