Site Specific Installation at NY Public Library for New Yorkers
On a recent evening in mid-town Hot Tea lit a candle for those we’ve lost. 180 of them actually.
A conceptual public art piece on the steps of the Mid Manhattan Library, the Street Artist who is known for tagging isometrically with yarn on fences summoned a bevy of volunteers to share the memory of someone they lost by writing a remembrance on the back of a brown paper bag and joining in a collective open ceremony to lift the spirit, lighten the load.
Hot Tea (photo © Jaime Rojo)
“I wanted to depict the grand stairs of the library at night with 180 bags dimly lit by tea lights,” says the soft spoken Minneapolis based Street Artist who has successfully installed his non-destructive public works around the city while people walk by. Perhaps because of the gravity of the theme of loss, the volunteers worked quietly and with certitude filling paper sacks with sand and candles and carefully lighting them while tourists bought fluorescent propeller toys for their kids from sidewalk entrepreneurs and people posed alongside the marble lions named “Patience” and “Fortitude”.
Hot Tea (photo © Jaime Rojo)
After the luminaries were lit a faint Hot Tea pattern could be discerned across the new façade atop six risers, but mostly it was a warm flickering glow on a breeze-free late spring eve. Participants and passersby posed in front of the temporary holy place, a photographer with a drone recorded the scene from 20 feet above and tourists held up their multitudes of tablets and phones to record. Finally Hot Tea invited mourners and others to gather arms around shoulders to say a prayer and pass strength to one another. People were encouraged to take a hand-scribed bag that remembered someone else with them.
Hot Tea (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Hot Tea (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Hot Tea (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Hot Tea (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Hot Tea (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Hot Tea (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Hot Tea (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Hot Tea (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Hot Tea (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Hot Tea (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Hot Tea (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Hot Tea (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Hot Tea (photo © Jaime Rojo)
<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA
Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!
<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA
Other Articles You May Like from BSA:
On a day in the United States with yet another mass shooting, this one at a synagogue in Pittsburg, JR has introduced a new massive artwork that talks about guns in America, a seemingly intractable, u...
Aerosol in pursuit of the “Masters” (Eurocentrically speaking) is a permutation of Street Art and the mural making tradition going back decades, including murals made directly by “Masters” (Latino-ce...
A New Exhibition Marks the 1917 Revolution in St. Petersburg at the Street Art Museum This spring, a hundred years since the Russian Revolution, a new Street Art inspired exhibition in St. Pe...
Despite the impression you may have from exploding, car-chasing action movies, New York can actually be a very kind place. Yes, New Yorkers can be abrupt, opinionated, and unvarnished in their assessm...
Across the US today families are joining together/avoiding each other for Thanksgiving in a spirit of gratitude. For those who are afraid to have potentially firey political conversations at the din...