Public Address, 2025-, iterative public artwork consisting of handwritten log entries, upcycled aluminum city street signs, concrete, and steel, Petrosino Square in Manhattan, curated by Guillermo Ruiz de Teresa, commissioned by the Storefront for Art and Architecture and the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs and in partnership with NYC Department of Homeless Services and NYC Parks, Petrosino Square, New York, NY
Public Address, 2025-, sidewalk intervention consisting of upcycled aluminum city street signs, 8.5x11”, 13 signs across Manhattan, commissioned by the Storefront for Art and Architecture and the NYC Deptartment of Cultural Affairs and in partnership with NYC Department of Homeless Services and DOT Art
New York City remains the only municipality in the United States to guarantee the right to shelter, a commitment established through decades of advocacy and litigation. I have served as the Public Artist in Residence with the NYC Department of Homeless Services and the Department of Cultural Affairs since 2022. Public Address is a citywide public artwork commissioned by the Storefront for Art and Architecture that centers the lived experience of those most impacted by housing insecurity. The project establishes a dialogue with New York City, affirming access to temporary shelter as a basic right while also exposing the limits of such provision in addressing deeper crises of affordability, displacement, and care.
Public Address builds on three years of collaborative “log-writing workshops” I developed and organized in shelters across the city. These handwritten reflections by shelter residents and frontline staff are translated onto upcycled aluminum street signs fabricated by the Department of Transportation’s Sign Shop, which fabricates all municipal signage. Transforming the bureaucratic tool of the logbook and the language of city infrastructure into public art, these signs invite public dialogues about housing insecurity, migration, caregiving, and resistance.
Over the course of a year, five large-scale installations—one per borough—will rotate through city parks. These spaces are designed for deep listening and respite, in a city where public space is increasingly privatized. One sign per community district will be installed and affixed to lampposts across the city, prompting passersby to pause and engage. Over 300 participants have contributed so far, with new entries continually integrated as the project travels.
Public Address is being realized in partnership with Commonpoint, so that participants in their construction job program can be hired to install and deinstall the work as it moves across the city. The installations are activated transdisciplinary public programming focused on housing justice, migrant rights, the criminalization of homelessness, and community-driven systems such as mutual aid networks, tenants’ unions, and community land trusts.
By embedding testimony within the visual and spatial codes of the city, the project amplifies voices too often excluded from public discourse while foregrounding ways in which civic infrastructures can be reimagined as platforms for listening. Most importantly, the project’s public presence offers unhoused people and staff an unprecedented space for their voices to be centered and heard.
︎︎︎ Map of individual signs across Manhattan
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Storefront for Art and Architecture newsprint featuring texts by curator Guillermo Ruiz de Teresa and Department of Cultural Affairs Assistant Commissioner Kendal Henry
Public Address builds on three years of collaborative “log-writing workshops” I developed and organized in shelters across the city. These handwritten reflections by shelter residents and frontline staff are translated onto upcycled aluminum street signs fabricated by the Department of Transportation’s Sign Shop, which fabricates all municipal signage. Transforming the bureaucratic tool of the logbook and the language of city infrastructure into public art, these signs invite public dialogues about housing insecurity, migration, caregiving, and resistance.
Over the course of a year, five large-scale installations—one per borough—will rotate through city parks. These spaces are designed for deep listening and respite, in a city where public space is increasingly privatized. One sign per community district will be installed and affixed to lampposts across the city, prompting passersby to pause and engage. Over 300 participants have contributed so far, with new entries continually integrated as the project travels.
Public Address is being realized in partnership with Commonpoint, so that participants in their construction job program can be hired to install and deinstall the work as it moves across the city. The installations are activated transdisciplinary public programming focused on housing justice, migrant rights, the criminalization of homelessness, and community-driven systems such as mutual aid networks, tenants’ unions, and community land trusts.
By embedding testimony within the visual and spatial codes of the city, the project amplifies voices too often excluded from public discourse while foregrounding ways in which civic infrastructures can be reimagined as platforms for listening. Most importantly, the project’s public presence offers unhoused people and staff an unprecedented space for their voices to be centered and heard.
︎︎︎ Map of individual signs across Manhattan
︎︎︎ Storefront for Art and Architecture newsprint featuring texts by curator Guillermo Ruiz de Teresa and Department of Cultural Affairs Assistant Commissioner Kendal Henry
ACTIVATIONS:
“The Right to the City” with writer Jennifer Egan and Will Watts, Deputy Director of Advocacy for Coalition for the Homeless
“The Right to the City: Homelessness and Advocacy” opened the yearlong series of programs with Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Jennifer Egan and Will Watts, Deputy Executive Director for Advocacy at the Coalition for the Homeless. Together, we discussed the current state of homelessness in New York City, the only municipality in the United States that guarantees a right to shelter, a protection won through decades of advocacy and litigation, and the ongoing need for supportive housing and collective accountability.
The opening celebration offered free food to anyone attending the exhibition or passing through the park, prepared by EVLoves’s Cafewal. This free restaurant provides free meals and jobs for new New Yorkers.
PROJECT INFRASTRUCTURE:
Research image of log book at DHS shelter
NYC Department of Transportation Sign Shop in Maspeth, Queens where all signs for the project are printed using upcycled aluminum city street signs
Individual sign installation process with DOT
Installation at Petrosino Square with Commonpoint construction training program
Public Address asks systems to operate differently–not only symbolically, but infrastructurally and through new social relations. These process images document the labor and organizing that shape the work’s meaning and movement. I partnered with the Department of Transportation to print handwritten log entries, subverting the authority of official signage with voices from people experiencing homelessness. By linking four disparate city agencies–Homeless Services, Cultural Affairs, Transportation, and Parks-the work moves beyond representation to model accountability across systems. Further, the project’s economies mirror its ethics. Through a partnership I established with the non-profit, Commonpoint, participants in their construction job program get hired installing and deinstalling the work as it moves across the city.
EXHIBITION CREDITS: