About the exhibition
This is an ongoing project. Check here for updates.
Artists Zoe Beloff and Eric Muzzy have been speaking with essential workers in jobs ranging from neighborhood food distribution on the Lower East Side to longshoremen at massive supply chain shipping ports in Red Hook.
These stories will come together in an interactive, documentary public art project celebrating the people who, at great personal cost, keep all of us going through the pandemic. It will take the form of a series of posters and and large scale wall mural featuring a larger-than-life parade of workers, each a portrait of a real person.
Collectively they will highlight the diversity and resiliency of the working people of this city. Each portrait will have QR codes that will link to short documentary films in which the workers will introduce us to their world, their work and their dreams for the future.
On display July 2-August 1, 2022 at Slought gallery, and August 25-September 12th at The James Gallery.
Slought and the James Gallery at the Center for the Humanities are pleased to present Song of the Essential Worker, a documentary art project celebrating the working people of New York, following the hardship of the COVID-19 pandemic. A public reception and event featuring artists Zoe Beloff and Eric Muzzy in conversation with Michael Paul Britto and Lowely Cheung, two workers who participated in the project, will take place on Saturday, July 2, 2022 from 4-6pm.
The Song of the Essential Worker film, mural, and poster projects are organized by the James Gallery and Slought Foundation in collaboration with support from NYC City Artists Corps and SP CUNY.
