City Looking on Feedback to Send Art Installation at Waterfront Park to Old Town Pool

The Wrought, Knit, Labors, Legacies art installation at Waterfront Park will be taken down next month at Waterfront Park, and the public is being asked to weigh in on a proposal to temporarily move the installation outside of Old Town Pool (1609 Cameron Street).

The four figurative sculptures by Olalekan Jeyifous are meant to convey Alexandria’s history with African American quilting and textile designs, and was unveiled in March. The installation is the second to occupy the public art space at Waterfront Park, after the Mirror Mirror installation in 2019.

A community meeting on the topic will be held on Thursday, October 29, from 7-8 p.m.

No replacement installation has yet been made public.

The full message from the city on the move is below the jump.

The City of Alexandria commissioned Olalekan Jeyifous to create an original, site-specific work of public art as part of the Site See: New Views in Old Town temporary public art series at Waterfront Park. The resulting work, Wrought, Knit, Labors, Legacies, was met with strong public support and national media coverage, including Architectural Digest and Forbes.

Due to the limited access of the artwork during COVID-19, the City is temporarily extending the exhibition of the artwork in a new location that retains the original inspiration of the artwork. The four figurative sculptures that are part of the artwork will be moved to the park space in front of Old Town Pool, located at 1609 Cameron Street, on November 10 and 11, 2020 as part
of a temporary loan from the artist.

The figures have been reconfigured by the artist to accommodate the new location. The ground mural from the original installation will not be replicated in this location but will be shown on interpretive signage at the site.

After a staff review of available and appropriate sites, this location was chosen for a variety of reasons, including that the site is able to accommodate the artwork, it is in the historic Parker- Grey neighborhood, and its location is less than a half-mile from Freedom House, the inspiration for the artwork. The site is currently used as a passive park for picnicking and for open space for residents and day care groups that walk to the area with ample parking for visitors. The sculpture installation is not expected to interfere with current use of the park.