Safe Space - attempts to reclaim locations
Public Intervention: Form, Content, Context (one to many) This project is about stepping out of the studio and conducting primary research of a place and it’s users through making. It involves a series of rapid iterations evolving to the next stage weekly. Concepts evolve from the initial formal investigations. Themes: site specificity, making as a form of research, visual disruption, making the familiar unfamiliar.
Safe Space attempts to reclaim location where incidents of assault have occurred and raise awareness of past history. Through public installation, we hope to raise awareness of this past. Safe Space attempts to create an interaction with the pedestrian in unsafe areas in central park.
Safe Space is a team project by Preeti Jain & Julie Ghimenti
Earlier Iterations
The following pictures show the earlier iterations where we experimented with color, order, direction, surface and space at Madison Square Park and Highline Park. The lesson learned from the reactions of people was later applied in our final project at Central Park.
Visual Research Conclusions
Patterns that are clean and repetitive, with an orderly configuration, tend to generate a reaction in people. Disruptive and dissonant patterns were perceived as aggressive and invasive in the space. However, they drew attention in a crowed Public Space.
For this reason, we chose to play with these elements in the final iteration.
Installation at Central Park
The following photographs show the patterns installed in different locations.
Strawberry Fields
West 72nd St, NY
West 72nd St, NY
Last year a 73-year-old woman was attacked while bird watching in strawberry fields.
The Ravine
The Ravine, New York, NY
The Ravine, New York, NY
A woman walking her dog was assaulted at this location in 2004. The woman encountered the attacker at 9am at 102nd street and east drive, near the ravine.
110th Street
31 West 110th St, New York, NY
31 West 110th St, New York, NY
The 20th and 24th precincts, covering 59th to 110th streets, saw a two year increase in misdemeanor sex crimes, about double since 2010.
The Pool
The Pool, New York, NY
The Pool, New York, NY
In 2012, there were two rapes and eighteen robberies at this location. The crime statistics rate has dropped almost 73% since 1990. However, this area is still considered dangerous during the night.
