Inhabited '97: Ghosts of Home

Projects by independent artists re-animated the four-story Lower East Side Tenement Museum, a  National Historic Landmark building, home to nearly 10,000 immigrants during the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Visitors in groups of fifteen were guided through partially restored  apartments and ruins open to the public for the first time since they were closed and the residents  evicted during the Great Depression. Over 500 people attended the sold-out two-night event.

Curation/direction: Dana Salisbury and Maureen Brennan. Produced by Lower East Side Tenement Museum and Red Dive (Maureen Brennan, Catherine Dill, Peggy Peloquin, Bonnie  Reese, Dana Salisbury, Ashley Smith), a collective of six independent artists established in 1996, that grew out of and received support from the Independent Artist Challenge Program, a creative think-tank administered by The Field and funded by the Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation. 

Projects by: Ariane Anthony, Maureen Brennan, Tod Bresnick, Christopher Caines, Damien  Catera, Dean Street Field of Operations, Diane Dwyer, Robert Dyrenforth, Michael John Garces,  Stephen Geras, Jon Ginzel, Catherine Heard, Jeff Hoyer, Michael Lillard, Kate Morgan, Seth  Morris, Heather Raikes, Bonnie Reese, Raul Rothblatt, Armand Ruhlman III, Dana Salisbury, Johnna Schmidt and Chris Brophy, Ashley Smith, Debbie Stamos, Marion Stanton, Matt Zekala. 

Lighting Design and Technical Direction: Severin Clay.

Card photo: John Reuter