IN/WITH CHELSEA
Through a series of artworks, In/With Chelsea inserts local memory and advocacy within the streetscapes of North Chelsea surrounding the Spur, the newest section of the High Line.
The street signs will be on view from October 2, 2019 – September 1, 2020.
About the Project:
Artists Lizania Cruz, Shannon Finnegan, Alicia Grullon, and Betty Yu were commissioned to work with local service providers and businesses to engage in storytelling workshops, interviews, and conversations with local residents and workers. As you walk through Northern Chelsea, you’ll find moments of these interactions and neighborhood histories on street signs; signage produced and installed by the New York City Department of Transportation’s Art Program and Sign Shop.
After six months of engagement with partners including Hudson Guild, The Center, Center for Independence of the Disabled, New York, National Domestic Worker Alliance, Esposito Meat Market, GMHC, Fountain House Gallery, and the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, each artist created a series of street signs to make the historical and social landscape of long-time residents visible to the broader public.
These works add historical context and contemporary voices to inform the narrative of our changing urban landscape. Each artist worked with a different population: senior residents, LGBTQ+ populations, neighbors with disabilities, garment workers, and union laborers.
About Betty Yu’s Working Stories Public Street Sign Project, Part of In/With Chelsea:
Betty Yu looked to capture the labor stories of everyday people—past and present; union and non-union; informal and formal; immigrant, undocumented, and US born. She interviewed a broad cross section of workers—people in retail, labor organizing, the service industry, non-profits, and domestic work. Yu also hosted a story circle with longtime union organizers and members of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. For Yu, working people are the backbone of this neighborhood, and of the city. “The stories go beyond the parameters of today’s Chelsea,” says Yu. “These are stories from workers who recount the neighborhood before the millionaires, luxury towers, big box stores, and expensive art took over.” In Chelsea, the mix of lower and higher income residents, and of workers and employers, is in constant motion and interaction with one another. The stories Yu collected, and the signs she created, speak of this history, agitation, and change.
For more her project: https://www.thehighline.org/in-with-chelsea-betty-yu/
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