Arch in Washington, Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

• It’s 3D, so it looks more like a cage (which I related to a birdcage)
• The middle portion is a solid opening unlike the whole fence (it makes an organic shape) and makes it interactive in this way
  • It’s situated right under the arch and sort of becomes the arch
  • There are some lights on the sides so it must look really shiny at night
  • Some sick folk music playing and it’s pretty lit

   

The Fences on the building in Cooper Union

• There’s (what I assume to be fences) blocking the windows

• The fences certainly make it harder to look out the window, but I think it represents blocking out hope because when I think of looking out the window, I think of looking far away and wishing for something

As a collective, we observed that Good Fences Make Good Neighbors at Washington Square Park, looked more like a cage rather than a fence. The organic shape in the center of the piece also ruins the illusion of a fence. In fact, one of us noted that these fences wouldn’t make particularly good fences (if they were to be setup as it). The hole in center makes the piece more interactive, allowing people to freely pass through, although a bit restrained. Perhaps this represents immigrants still managing to sneak over. That even though we put up laws against refugees and immigrants, there will still be people against it and that’s something to be hopeful for. The on-site-construction in Cooper Union had the fences merge smoothly with the architecture. It wasn’t full on locking up the place, just covering the holes, but people probably wouldn’t be able to pass through (unless they squeezed through the gap). However, the piece is placed up on building, blocking out, what one of us noted, hope. The piece in Washington appeared more hopeful than the one at Cooper Union because the fences at Cooper Union were full on lockdown, whereas the single one at Washington Square had a hole in the center. The visual themes the two constructions shared was both being fences and situated under arches, already existing before the fences. Both were also unified in this minimalistic aesthetic using metal as a way to make viewers understand the overall concept of being trapped or imprisoned.