DATE: Tuesday, January 24, 2024, at
10:00 am ET
CONTACT@hartisland.net
New York City—The Hart Island
Project is pleased to announce it has been approved
by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) for a Challenge
America
award of $10,000. This grant will
support Landscape
of Hope which will offer visions of a future landscape on Hart
Island in collaboration Jake Boswell, Jack Gruber and
Brendan Ayer, professors in Landscape Architecture at Ohio State University, Knowlton School of Architecture. In
total, the NEA will award 257 Challenge America awards totaling $2,570,000 that
were announced as part of its first round of fiscal year 2024 grants.
“The NEA is delighted to announce this grant to The Hart Island
Project, which is helping contribute to the strength and well-being of the
arts sector and local community,” said National Endowment for the Arts Chair
Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. “We are pleased to be able to support this
community and help create an environment where all people have the opportunity
to live artful lives.”
Building on Traveling Cloud Museum’s recently added interpretive
guide, navigation tools and augmented reality grave markers, “Landscape of Hope”
will allow visitors to toggle or swipe to view a time-based landscape
restoration process. The project will be accessible on mobile devices on
location as well as off-site at http://www.hartisland.net
“We
hope this will inspire a process toward reconciling anonymous burials of past,
present and future in a historically stigmatized landscape. The largest
municipal cemetery and natural burial ground in the United States can be
transformed into a place where the histories of marginalized people are
preserved, recognized and reconnected to communities through a renewed
experience.” said Melinda Hunt of The Hart Island Project, speaking for the design
team.
“The
project will also present NYC Parks with landscape strategies as they begin a
masterplan. A landscape strategy forefronts the long-term care necessary for
the success of an active, living environment. The relationship between the
bio-physical nature or plants and humans on Hart Island reveals the
interconnection between human lifespan, public memory, the burial process and
plant behavior on the island. We believe this will offer a new cultural
landscape for 21st century natural burials while also better adapting
the island and proposed parkland to the impact of climate change on the Long
Island Sound.
By
providing a landscape strategy that is visible and open for public comment, we
hope that those most impacted by this historically stigmatized landscape will
feel that their loved ones are finally given respectful treatment when they
return to the earth. The project is intended to show their histories preserved
in the soil.”
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