Grid Scenes, 14th st Manhattan. 2011

A Performance Marking the 200th Anniversary of the 1811 Manhattan Grid
April 3, 2011, 14th Street, Between 5-7 Ave, NYC, 7–8pm

The University-wide Urban Curriculum at The New School is pleased to announce the second annual Urban Festival commemorating the bicentennial anniversary of the 1811 Commissioners’ Grid of Manhattan. A partnership between Art in Odd Places and urban@newschool, this event will celebrate and imagine the future of the grid. The Commissioners’ Grid began at Fourteenth Street, the first street in the grid to span from the Hudson to the East Rivers. Professional and amateur performers, as well as artists will offer a condensed a two-hour event beginning at sunset on Fourteenth Street between 5th Ave and 7th Ave. This event is free and open to the public.

We aim to renew the grid to create new socio-cultural relations to the region’s natural resources. Our relationship with climate, food, animals and with ourselves is up for discussion. The under utilized and overlooked spaces of our city afford environments for a wilder imagination. The Urban Festival seeks to raise a discussion about ecological and social inclusion in our dense city grid.

Art in Odd Places aims to stretch the boundaries of communication in the public realm by presenting artworks in all disciplines outside the confines of traditional public space regulations. AiOP reminds us that public spaces function as the epicenter for diverse social interactions and the unfettered exchange of ideas. This year the theme of the festival is ritual: ceremony, habituation, myth, obsession, and liturgy.

The performance ‘Grid Scenes’ is a collaboration between Harmattan Theater and the course ‘Cinemetrics’. This portion of the festival will also include curated installations from the course ‘Urban Interventions’. Other participating artists include The BroLab Collective who will explore notions of labor and resolution dissolving boundaries between viewer and participant inviting the public to interact with a panel of artist and curators, as well as Hydrophony who will reveal New York City living waters through a chance-sound installation comprised of underwater field recordings taken from both Hudson and East rivers. Hydrophony is artists Heather Dewey-Hagborg and Thomas Dexter.