#InTheLoop | New Art Installation in Flushing Meadows Corona Park Explores Local Living Conditions
BY QEDC It's In Queens
Hope is alive in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
A commissioned public installation has just been unveiled near Meadow Lake, which is the largest body of fresh water in New York City.
Created by Queens-based artist Laura Lappi, 7 x 7 (Hope) explores space and the costs of living and housing in NYC. With pine, black pine tar, LED lights, and a solar panel, the sculpture consists of a black wooden house built with wooden beams that are installed in columns, leaving a space between each beam. Viewers can see through it, but they can’t get inside, as the structure has no windows or doors. The piece is seven feet long, five feet wide, and seven feet high, referring to the size of an illegally rented basement room. Each wall has an embedded letter, creating a word H-O-P-E, and an inside light makes it visible and glowing during the twilight hours and in darkness.
Lappi seeks to draw attention to living conditions in Queens with this sculpture. She says her inspiration came from issues of social justice, the complex promise of hope, and modern urban life.
7 x 7 (Hope) is actually the Finland native’s second site-specific work in a series of house structures exploring notions of belonging, home, loneliness, and yearning. The first installation, 2 x 3 (Heartbeat), has adorned a rocky outcropping in a remote Finnish forest still 2013.
Lappi is one of two winners of the “Art in the Parks” grant competition, which is spearheaded by the Alliance for FMCP and NYC Parks. Working together, Jeannine Han and Dan Riley were the other winners. They will unveil Another way it could go near the park entrance at 110th Street in October 2020.
Each winner received $5,000 to create and install an original work of art at a key public space within the largest park in Queens, which is also NYC’s fourth largest park. Both installations will be on view until Fall 2021.
“Flushing Meadows Corona Park embodies the heart of the city, and we are thrilled to support Queens artists and highlight the park’s diverse and energized creative community with this grant opportunity,” said Alliance for FMCP Executive Director Janice Melnick. “Laura Lappi’s artwork is a heartwarming tribute to the World’s Borough, and to our city’s thriving art scene, even in challenging times.”
Images: Rick Eikmans