Artist DB Lampman to Create Permanent Sculpture in Stapleton
DB Lampman’s “I Am Within/I Am Without” at Freshkills Park.
Staten Island-based artist DP Lampman has been selected to create an art installation as part of the NYCEDC New Stapleton Waterfront project.
In 2011, Lampman unveiled Freshkills Park’s first temporary on-site art installation, I Am Within/I Am Without. Three large-scale human figurative sculptures atop one of the hills at Freshkills Park reached out with multiple limbs towards the sky, then gently curved back towards the Earth. Their reaching symbolized human attempts to intervene in nature, only to “tangle in their own folly.” The untreated metal rusted over time, bleeding into the fabric of the sculpture: a reminder of the slow but steady ways nature reclaims its space.
Lampman and husband Scott Van Campen are the founders of Staten Island MakerSpace, a nonprofit workshop in Stapleton. The inspiration for MakerSpace came soon after Hurricane Sandy in October 2012, when their shop was flooded with over three feet of water. The experience led Lampman and Van Campen to “make a space for people to create, invent, collaborate, and make great things.”
The new installation, called Bachmann’s Knot, echoes both Staten Island’s deep connection with the ocean and its tight-knit human communities—which often become stronger in the face of events like Hurricane Sandy. The knot’s strands will look as if they are gently waving in the breeze, meant to mimic the rolling waves of the ocean. Each strand will be capped by a small mirror. The mirrored ends will reflect surrounding lights at night, transforming the sculpture into an up-close constellation. It will take approximately ten years to complete, and it is meant to remain in the new waterfront for fifty years.
See the Staten Island Advance for renderings and models of the winning proposal.
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