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ICA Artists
in-Residence at Boston National Historical Park
ICA Artists-in-Residence
at Boston National Historical Park is a joint initiative
between the Institute of Contemporary Art and the National
Park Service that provides a living interpretation of the
Park’s cultural resources and historical themes through
the work of artists. This program is an extension of Vita
Brevis’s mission of presenting compelling art outside
the walls of the ICA.
Boston National
Historical Park is a collection of historic sites owned
by the City of Boston, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,
the Federal government, and several private organizations.
Its mission is to preserve, interpret, and protect those
historic structures and properties of outstanding national
significance located in Boston.
Conspire
Boston artists
Laura Baring-Gould and Michael Dowling collaborated to create
an ambitious new multi-part work, Conspire, which
examined and celebrated the power of five of Boston’s
most important historic sites and the key roles each played
in the founding and growth of the United States. Drawing
on the rich histories of the African Meeting House, Old
South Meeting House, Paul Revere House, and Copp’s
Hill Burying Ground as significant places of assembly and
shelter, the artists created small house-shaped sculptures
of copper, silver, slate, and alabaster especially for each
site. These sculptures led to a water-borne copper meetinghouse
docked at the Charlestown Navy Yard that was designed and
constructed by the artists.
During their
residency, Baring-Gould and Dowling became interested in
Boston’s significant historical structures where our
18th- and 19th-century forebears gathered to gain political
strength, to teach, to live, to worship, to mourn, and to
remember. Each of the sites chosen for their project witnessed
remarkable events related to ideals that have defined this
nation—freedom to worship, revolution, abolition, education,
and historic preservation. |
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