White Elephant
WHITE ELEPHANT, a collaboration between REBECCA BIRD and SALAMATA BA, began as a set piece for a production of The Lion King, directed by visionary movement teacher Aqila Norris (@soulworkstudio) at a Bed Stuy elementary school. Local schools are underfunded, and the benefits of art and creation for kids are often overlooked. Aqila provided students with guidance and concrete tools to use their voices as performers, while the individual provided parts of the set, including an elephant skeleton made out of recycled Chewy boxes, Elmer's glue, and old copies of the Brooklyn Rail.
The piece is being reworked and will live a second life for a few days on the streets of Ridgewood. It's big enough for small people to get inside or walk through and to be seen from passing vehicles, with the hope of providing an element of surprise and curiosity in the midst of daily life. An elephant graveyard is an elusive and mysterious place.
Perhaps it's an opportunity to connect to our primal roots, a silly memento mori, or a reminder that we build the world out of whatever is lying around.
Rebecca Bird
Primarily known as a painter, Rebecca Bird’s interventions into the public realm include animation, performance, large public works, and instigating the non-profit space Tomato Mouse in Brooklyn. In 2019 Bird completed Intent & Assembly, a 91-foot-long commissioned painting for Seattle Children’s Research Institute.
Bird has had solo shows at Kopeikin Gallery, Russel Day Gallery, Voookhyang, William Holman Gallery, Wave Hill and other venues. She has performed at the Hammer Museum, The Armory Show, Fumetto Festival and Issue Project Room, and shown her animation at Lincoln Center, the Everhart Museum and on Triple Canopy and The New York Times online. Her paintings have appeared in the Paris Review and Harper’s. She has recieved numerous grants and residencies. Her work is held in collections including MOMA, NY.
Rebecca Bird received her BFA from the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in 2000, having attended the Yale Summer School of Music and Art in 1999. She was a Fulbright Fellow to Japan in Painting 2000-1, researching Nihonga. Before university she apprenticed in egg tempera painting with painter Michael Bergt. From 2007 to 2011 she drew Middle Kingdom relief fragments for the Metropolitan Museum on site in Dashur, Egypt. She has painted many carousels for amusement parks around the world.
rebeccabird.info
Fallow Frames Biennial 2024
July 13 — 14, 2024
Ridgewood, Queens NY
2pm — 7pm
24 Empty Tree Beds - 25 Participating Artists
Ridgewood’s sidewalks have over 800 empty tree beds - or roughly one for every 90 residents.
The Fallow Frames Biennial is an upcoming public art festival that will be held on July 13th and 14th, where local artists are invited to use 24 abandoned tree beds to stage site-specific installations and performances.
Visitors are invited to wander the neighborhood as active participants in a larger narrative of renewal and artistic expression - and to spark conversations about urban ecology and these small neglected patches of the city’s landscape.
Festival Map