Green-Wood Cemetery’s current artist-in-residence, Rowan Renee, hosted an open studio this weekend at the cemetery's Fort Hamilton Gatehouse, offering visitors a preview of their site-specific installation which will be exhibited in Green-Wood’s Historic Chapel in May 2023.
The Brooklyn-based artist started their residency at Green-Wood in February 2022. Rowan finds the cemetery’s history and landscape inspiring. “I’ve been going on a lot of long walks and visually taking in the landscape,” they said. Combing through Green-Wood’s extensive archives, Rowan has been able to “gain understanding on what I’m seeing, or maybe interpreting on my own.”
Rowan is currently “focusing on the public lots at Green-Wood,” explaining, “there’s [nearly] 600,000 people buried here and a third of them are in the public lots.” Typically located around the perimeter of Green-Wood, these lots are the “historically affordable sections” of the 478-acre cemetery, according to green-wood.com.
“Sometimes the memorials [in the public lots], because they’re built without foundations, can fall over or sink in the earth, so there may be a memorial there that is actually hidden from view,” Rowan explained. “I’m really interested in the unmarked graves in the public lots. I’ve been going into the archives and finding out who’s there and I’m working with the idea of how to memorialize individuals here who don’t have a visible memorial in the landscape.”
Rowan’s upcoming installation will include sculpture composed in marble, glass, metal, and stone as well as textile work. Some of the materials they are using were sourced from Green-Wood. The exhibit will address class disparities in the cemetery—“Pushing against the narrative of Green-Wood as a space primarily for the wealthy, since there are so many people buried here who aren’t wealthy,” Rowan explained. “Bringing attention to ordinary people whose memories are not as visible in the landscape.” Rowan also hopes to illustrate the beauty and serenity of these spaces that tend not to get as much foot traffic as the paths that house elaborate mausoleums and memorials. “They’re not on the most picturesque paths through the cemetery, but they are still beautiful.”
Originally from Florida, Rowan received their BFA from Parsons the New School for Design and their MFA in Studio Art from the University of Michigan. Rowan’s past work is deeply personal, addressing “intergenerational trauma, gender-based violence and the impact of the criminal legal system through image, text and installation,” according to the artist’s website. For their project at Green-Wood, Rowan is “interested in looking outward and telling bigger stories that are more community driven” they said. “I have mined my own personal stories for quite some time, but I feel I’m at a moment where I want to shift away from that a little.”
For their upcoming exhibit, Rowan will share just a few stories of the cemetery’s “permanent residents,” as Green-Wood calls them. “This is a story about other people who are like my neighbors and who played a pivotal role in this city that I live in and love.”
Be sure to check back at green-wood.com in the spring for info on what will surely be an insightful and fascinating installation. For more information on the artist, visit rowanrenee.com.
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