Description

With its 35 th anniversary quickly approaching, Socrates Sculpture Park (SSP) seeks a special grant to fund an assessment of its institutional archives, which document over three decades of its uniquely diverse program of public sculpture. As was the case with the archives assessment that the AAP funded at The Studio Museum in Harlem, the grant will allow SSP to plan a major digital archives project aimed at making fully accessible online the documents and visual materials associated with its production and presentation of public sculpture in a community-centric setting. This first step in the creation of an online archive will set the stage for greater public and scholarly awareness of SSP’s history and achievements, particularly in the area of support for the work of diverse artists who until recently have been significantly less well represented by public art commissions. The assessment project continues the AAP’s support for this important cultural resource through publication-related grants which aimed to provide a longstanding record of the organization’s recent work.
The archives assessment project is planned as a six-month survey to be carried out by a consulting archivist. The term consultant will survey the materials associated with thousands of SSP commissions, all of which were fabricated on-site. This documentation is particularly valuable since the vast majority of the works created for SSP are not preserved or transferred to other settings. Materials include digital images, slides, film and video footage, publications, and draft drawings. In addition to serving as public and scholarly resource, and a source on the work of the many artists who have worked at SSP, the ultimate SSP digital archive will underpin both the organization’s own understanding of the arc of its work and its strategic planning for the coming decades.
This special grant aligns with AAP goals of bringing diverse narratives to the fore, particularly in settings where diverse communities are fully engaged. It also represents the program’s limited but continuing engagement with efforts in the public art sphere, particularly as the work becomes more relevant to the lives of more diverse communities.