Photos by Maria Baranova
Viviane Faver
Produced by Times Square Arts, the exhibition, How I Keep Looking Up: Flags of Resilience, by the organization’s first resident public artist, Christine Wong Yap, will be in the streets of Times Square until August 9th. The project collaborates with Encore Community Services, a support program based in Times Square and Hell’s Kitchen that provides meals and social services for senior New Yorkers.
To develop the installation, Wong Yap has worked side-by-side with eleven Encore seniors through art-making workshops to design flags representing personal stories about coping through adversities. Seniors reflect on questions like: Where does your resilience come from? How did you learn to cope? What did you learn about the world while facing challenges?
“Working with the seniors to create this project has been a wonderful experience. Their stories and interests communicate the vibrancy and resilience of Times Square and New York City in general, and I hope that visitors feel this sense of connection to the city, especially after such a difficult year. I am also grateful to Encore Community Services and Times Square Arts, whose knowledge of the district has been instrumental in bringing this public art project to life,” said Christine Wong Yap.
Throughout the development of the project, senior New Yorkers have shared moving stories that celebrate their victories, moments of comfort, and happiness they have found throughout the challenges of the past year. Many seniors’ flags commemorate their pets, who have stood by their side during isolation, or recount a difficult time in their life that led them to develop strength and adversity.
One of the participants is 79-year-old Marjorie Deborah Conn, who says she is thrilled to have her art exhibited in Times Square. “I fell in love with Manhattan at first sight when I was 18, and my first apartment was half a block from where the flags are, Times Square, and now I have the joy of seeing my flag flying. I am so proud of myself.”
Marjorie Deborah Conn’s flag is stamped with cats and dogs because, according to her, it was with whom she shared her life and her most desperate moments. “My dogs and cats rescued me, but I rescued them too. I tend to adopt special needs, battered, and elderly animals. The heart on my flag has lines that represent a heart. However, I wanted the heart to be huge because each animal made my heart grow and with it my capacity to love and have compassion for all living things.”
Peter Gallinari, 73 years old, immigrated from Germany to a neighborhood in Brooklyn when he was eight years old. The neighborhood kids picked on him and beat him up. To survive, he learned English, changed his accent to sound less German and more “Brooklyn,” and made jokes. “Life taught me to be an actor. After retiring from the NYC Sanitation department, I acted in films, television, and Broadway as Peter Linari. On my flag, the Brooklyn Bridge spans the old country to the new world. It is framed by stage curtains representing my acting career. The messages I want to convey are twofold. First, no matter where you start, you can get to New York, and second, it is never too late to try something new.”
Christine Wong Yap is the first artist chosen for the organization’s public artist-in-residence program of its kind. This experimental and collaborative model responds to the uniqueness of Times Square and its public art program by pairing socially engaged artists with Times Square’s massive network of businesses, nonprofits, hotels, restaurants, and people.
According to Times Square Arts Director Jean Cooney, through this work with both seniors and stitchers, Christine is forging new intersections of community in Times Square and memorializing the vulnerability, and celebrating the strength that marks this moment in time of our city and its people. “Her collaboration with Encore is modeling the ways in which artists can be powerful navigators of the challenges we are all facing right now and Times Square as a dynamic space for that work.”
