Elements of Composition [As Above So Below]

Bik Van der Pol produce a site-specific public textpiece on the empty parking lots adjacent to the Essex Street Market, in conjunction with daily walking tours in collaboration with NY citizens, open to visitors. The phrase points towards the contentious (re)valuation of space in the neighborhood, including vertical development and the issue of “air rights,” which apply to owning the space above plots of land.

The text, read as abstractions from the ground, will be completely legible from above. While looking into the void, this empty space also allows us a glimpse of the future, to what will be. A look at the empty sky, which, at some point will crystallize and capitalize.
In collaboration with Google Earth the text will be stored in their archive and can be seen via their website.

NY citizens give public walking tours—based on their personal knowledge and experience with the city and its urban developments. They are invited to the research gathered for this project, by listerning to recorded interviews with scholars, urban planners, activists, and organizers. The tours will consider not only what is visible at street-level, but also on those elements of the built environment that have been erased or are yet to exist in three dimensions. The tours are determined by the concept of the void, and can move both horizontally and vertically around the empty space, from the parking lot to an aerial view of the project and surrounding Lower East Side.
The tours will originate inside the Essex Street Market, where the projectspace functions as informationhub and starting point for the tours.