My Neighbor's Garden, Sheila Pepe, Madison Square Park, December 2023

Today we saw Sheila Pepe's "My Neighbor's Garden" in Madison Square Park. It fits into a growing tradition of outdoor exhibits like Ghost Forest by Maya Lin and Brier Patch by Hugh Hayden. Here'sa a complete list of all exhibitions at Madison Square Park going back to 2005.

This vibrant tapestry of crochet and plants transforms Madison Square Park and invites walking beneath.

Here's all the images I took at the park: https://photos.app.goo.gl/Gu7AV9G7ps5FjYxx5

Here's information about the exhibit from the plaque:

EXHIBITION

My Neighbor's Garden is a newly commissioned work by Sheila Pepe and the artist's first public art project. The work locates crocheted webs and canopies made of string, paracord, shoelaces, outsize rubber bands, arborist rope, weed whacker line, garden hose, and climbing plant materials on the Farragut Lawn and Oval Lawn in Madison Square Park. Attaching the handmade textiles to wooden poles and several of the park's lampposts, Pepe upends a traditional American nineteenth-century urban park layout with a twenty-first- century installation that brings color, unexpected materials, and optimism outdoors. Parkgoers can walk under and around the composed expanses. Pepe, a feminist and lesbian artist whose structures summon and critique conventional women's craft practice, transforms contemporary sculpture with crochet. The artist estimates 15,000 yards of materials were used to create My Neighbor's Garden; after this exhibition, they will be incorporated into her future projects.

Uncommon heirloom vegetables and flowering vines intermingle with Pepe's work, supporting interaction between artist materials and the natural world. New York's network of community gardens features a diverse array of heirloom plants such as bitter melon, sour gherkin, long bean, and morning glory, all of which are featured here. In various city neighborhoods, crocheted hearts, flags, banners, and other shapes can be seen affixed on fencing, sidewalk trees, poles, even bicycles. This type of street art has been called "yarn bombing" and "guerrilla knitting." Pepe, conversely, has taken the materials she has used in the hallowed spaces of museum exhibitions, for example, and transformed them for the outdoors. She has radicalized the kindly constitution of crochet into a paradigm of feminist action, drawing on histories of women who have convened in sewing circles, knitting clubs, and quilting bees.

In the nineteenth century, these forums were spaces to discuss women's rights, to advocate for and propel the abolition of slavery, and to create garments and blankets sold to provide income. Late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American photography documenting such circles has been exhibited at historical societies and museums and circulated through magazine illustrations. Black, Native American, Asian, and White women across generations participated in such visual languages. More recently, resettled refugees to the United States have joined sewing circles in their communities.

In the lead-up to the project, Pepe gathered novice and advanced crocheters, including people in the queer community, to create the work alongside her in her Brooklyn studio. These meetings are the conceptual warp and weft of My Neighbor's Garden, an experiment in which makers find a community for support and identity. Pepe and Madison Square Park Conservancy will continue these gatherings for the duration of the exhibition. This methodology of learning through and disseminating expertise is central to the artist's practice.