Highlights from the Senior Seminar
Ethan Coughlin
My City, Your City is a testament to the vast array of places you can go in New York City and the often unappreciated joy of finding them. Walking and riding public transit, I visited and documented trips to a number of destinations in the city, reframing what and where might embody this great city. New York City has five unique boroughs with thousands of interesting spots to explore in each, yet the city is so often generalized by a handful of the same, iconic locations. My work is influenced by filmmakers like Brett Story and Frederick Wiseman, Matthew López-Jensen’s walking pieces, and any other artist who’s fallen helplessly in love with New York City.
The piece takes the form of two looping, 40 minute videos, 21 prints of 35mm film photographs, and a map I designed, inspired by the NYC subway map. The videos show moments of still, peaceful scenes hiding throughout the city and along the commute. The photos capture specific moments of beauty found throughout the journeys, in the time spent travelling. The map ties the rest of the work within the familiar iconography of the city borders.
From the beaches of Rockaway to the hills of Grasmere, Floyd Bennett Field to Van Cortlandt park, it’s all New York City and it’s yours and mine to explore. You may stumble upon the ancestral cemetery plot of a prolific New York family just hiding in the woods or a colony of Argentine parrots living in the heart of Brooklyn. No matter how far you go in any direction, as long as you’re within the five boroughs (or just outside), public transit can take you home.