2021-2022 PHOTOVILLE
LENTICULAR historieS
Prospect Park, Brooklyn New York
A immersive and interactive monument that engages Prospect Park visitors in a system of reflections, refractions, and nonlinear photo-history that celebrates acts of “Leisure and activism”. Viewers experience the historical narrative of Prospect Park through historical photographs from private collections, public archives and New York journalists. The sculpture features three objects of optical illusion: stereoscopes, lenticulars, and prisms—which combine to blend reflections, rainbow-colored light, and history into a singular working system alluding to the intertwined chaos and harmony of public spaces. Highlighting decades of changes, while demonstrating how the park remains central to the community.
notes from the studio:
Where do these photographs come from? Selecting historical photographs that represent how public spaces are used for leisure, change and sanctuary during. These Prospect Park photos (dating back to the late 1800s) and 1000s of other photographs can be seen for free online at Brooklyn Public Library, Library of Congress, The Henry Ford Foundation and in the private collections of photojournalist Todd Maisel, NYC Parks Department Photo Archives, and the Prospect Park Alliance Photo Archives.
Photo History Highlights:
1. 1967 "Wed-In" Summer of Love - 75 couples were married in a civil ceremony in Prospect Park on Lookout Hill by Judge Amos Basel. (PPA / Brooklyn Historical Society)
Read more: about this public act of community and love during the height of the Vietnam War.
2. 1964 Children's Puppet Show (NYC Parks Dept.)
3. 1935 representatives from all the NYC Parks March in Parade (NYC Parks Dept.)
4. 1955 Rowing outside the Boat House (NYC Parks Dept.)
5. 1929 Sheep in Long Meadow (BPL)
6. 1913 Thomasina F. Fisher and Rose B. Loring sit by a net on the Long Meadow with their rackets.
August 20 (PPA/Bob Levine Collection)
1. 2020 A march on Grand Army Plaza as NYC city erupts in protest against George Floyd's Killing.(copyright Todd Maisel)
2. 1945 Margaret Truman Daniel, visited Prospect Park and attended a parade. (PPA)
3. 1890 -1910 Prospect Park, Croquet Players and Court Hand (The Henry Ford Foundation)
Photo by Jenny Young Chandler one of the first woman photo-journalist. Chandler worked to capture life in Brooklyn, with her sensitive, insightful photographs depicting people from all walks of life.
Read more about woman photo pioneer Jenny Young Chandler.
4. 1968 Bread and Puppet Theater Group performance acts of art and activism.
Learn more about this arts activist group: 'NPR 50 years of Paper Mache And Protest '
5. 1890s Prospect Park as an empty lot facing Flatbush Avenue. Sitting on trash, keeping warm.
6. 1959 Group of Kids Fishing in the stocked lake. (PPA)
The history of both photography and devices of illusion are important elements of Lenticular Histories - A monument dedicated to public space in times of chaos and leisure.
What's in the Eye-Peep Holes? The Stereoscope is a device by which two photographs of the same object taken at slightly different angles are viewed together, creating an impression of depth and 3D.
Lenticular Maze of Photographs: Lenticular or "Tabula scalata" pictures with two images divided into strips on different sides of a corrugated carrier. Each image can be viewed correctly from a certain angle. Most tabula scalata have the images in vertical lines so the picture seems to change from one image to another while walking past it. Known as "turning pictures" dates back to the 16th century.
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