Beyond Memorial: Site Walk & Screening

about the event.

Join us for a guided walking tour of Beyond Memorial prototypes installed in Brownsville, Brooklyn, led by 2023 Engaging Artists Commission Artist Immanuel Oni and youth participants from participatory workshops at the Brownsville Community Justice Center (BCJC). The walking tour will be followed by an outdoor film screening hosted by BCJC which reanimates a former movie theater, The Pitkin, that was once a community hub. The outdoor screening takes place where the Pitkin roughly stood, and is meant to prefigure a movie theater experience for the Brownsville community which otherwise has none.

We will meet at the Rockaway Avenue 3 Train Station at 6 pm, and the tour will start promptly at 6:15 pm. At 7:30 pm we will join the outdoor screening (with seating, popcorn, and an introduction to the project by Oni) hosted by the BCJC of “Evolution of Hip Hop” episode “New York State of Mind” (run time: 47 minutes), at the intersection of Pitkin Avenue and Junius Street.

Please contact dylan@moreart.org for further inquiries.

about the project.

Beyond Memorial, a project by Immanuel Oni commissioned through More Art's 2023 Engaging Artists program, is an art, design and healing justice response to the invisible—yet palpable—scars left in spaces after community trauma and loss. Oni has been collaborating with More Art this year to continue his work with youth in Brownsville and begin working with youth in East Harlem through workshops to create prototypes and cultivate alternative ideas for reclaiming space after trauma.

Common in the aftermath of shootings, impromptu candle memorials often follow such harrowing incidents. Ephemeral by nature, once these memorials have taken place, the candles themselves are often removed. These sites typically suffer from poor street lighting, and a lack of infrastructure, any natural elements, and cultural markers, making them rather unwelcoming environments. With the surge in gun violence and the erasure of public spaces in our communities, Oni's project asks what can be done to create spaces for healing, and convert them into sacred spaces. We are interested in discussing more broadly the role that art and design can have in shaping city spaces and ways that these projects can create alternatives to violence, trauma, and loss.


about the artist.

Immanuel Oni is a first-generation Nigerian-American artist and spatial designer living in New York City. He believes art is not about what he is making, but who he is making it for. His work explores loss and its deep connection with space. His canvas consists of repurposing existing public space infrastructure such as light posts, fencing, underutilized green areas, or mobile spaces to prompt community dialogue and connection. He has led and participated in international art and urbanism workshops in Venice, Hong Kong, and Lagos. He has received awards from the Design Trust for Public Space, Culture Push, New York for Culture and Arts, Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts, Architectural League of New York, and the New York Council of the Arts. He is a former Director of Community Design at the New York City’s Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice and an Adjunct Professor at Parsons the New School for Design. He is the co-founder and Creative Director of Liminal, a non-profit that works at the intersection of art, unity, and space.