Reify

2021 - 2022

Through an open call with the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs 2021-2022 Public Artists in Residence (PAIR) program, artist Melanie Crean was paired with the Department of Design and Construction (DDC) with the mandate to transform a construction site, in particular the DDC managed site at the Staten Island County courthouse, into a platform for dialog with affected communities. The resulting project, Reify, is an architectural intervention project, where Crean worked with youth from Staten Island to consider the future of justice that they would like to see in their community, and how they might represent this as a series or large format photographs installed on the front of the court building while under construction.

Crean held workshops with local youth, where they described issues surrounding their relationship with the hierarchical structure of the justice system. Using a series of narrative and performance-based exercises, youth conveyed thoughts about concepts of justice, judgment, safety and restitution. Their hopes for the future involved building more horizontal peer-to-peer structures where young people affected by the justice system could support one another both emotionally and practically. Reify is the root of ‘reinforce.’ It means to take something that is abstract, like this idea of mutual aid, and make it real. It is a form of "public work" that is construction on a human scale. The images featured on the construction fencing and on the banners hanging from the building's portico, echo people forging connections with one another across multiple divides. 

A courthouse building undergoing reconstruction presents the opportunity for re-imagination of the systems that it represents and facilitates. The Future is a political space, that all communities have not been granted equitable access to, so imagination is, in and of itself, a political act. Project workshops culminated with a design visioning exercise to imagine a just future for Staten Island, where youth worked together with local members of Legal Aid and Cure Violence organizations. Resulting design concepts included a free community campus that was a combined educational, wellness, job training and cultural center; and a bracelet that scanned crowd source community data to let people know the location of POC-owned businesses and resources. These designs echoed that justice does not begin with a single system, but from a range of resources. All agreed that representing images of young people at large scale on the front of a court building was a powerful representation of this phenomenon. 

Staten Island Urban Center hosted a community dialog, Reify: The Future of Justice on Staten Island, Sat Dec 3, info here.

This project is supported by the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs and the Department of Design and Construction. Project installation is supported by City Canvas, a NYC Department of Cultural Affairs initiative, and ArtBridge, a public art nonprofit. This project is made possible, in part, by funding from the Ford Foundation.

Participants include: Ania N., Champ M., Deanna T., Ezekiel G., Lailany E., Manya S., and Tsanaya H.

Special thanks to: the Staten Island Justice Center, the Staten Island Urban Center, Gronda Productions, the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, and Parsons School of Design.