This Bridge Called Our Backs

This Bridge Called Our Backs (2023)
CONCEPT DRAWINGS, RESEARCH PROPOSAL

Part of The Tandang Sora Project (with Monument Lab), this proposal for a large-scale public artwork had an early iteration exhibited at Flushing Town Hall, Queens, NY, in December 2023.

This proposal for a large-scale public artwork is part of The Tandang Sora Project, my ongoing research and public memory campaign developed in collaboration with Monument Lab. The concept draws from the idea of care as infrastructure, a phrase championed by Senator Elizabeth Warren in her advocacy for care policies. I imagine a bas-relief for Roosevelt Avenue, a corridor that connects many immigrant enclaves in Queens and crosses over the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway at the Woodside–Jackson Heights border. Many residents of these neighborhoods worked in essential roles during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and their labor and resilience are central to this vision.

My influences range from American Art Deco to the intricate stone carvings of Southeast Asian Buddhist temples, such as Angkor Wat in Cambodia. I also draw from the feminist anthology This Bridge Called My Back (edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa), celebrating a lineage of women of color thought and care.

This concept is currently awaiting further opportunity or investment to be developed at full scale, and I’m eager to create a prototype and explore its material possibilities in collaboration with local partners. You can learn more about the work at http://tandangsora.nyc.

Jaclyn Reyes

This Bridge Called Our Backs (2023)