How One Performance Artist in Florida Is Bringing Together a Wounded Community With a Little Help From Michael Bloomberg

As the communities of Coral Springs and Parkland, Florida,
continue to heal in the wake of the 2018 school shooting
at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, during which 17
people were killed, artist Kate Gilmore is staging a 26-hour
participatory performance piece, the third in a series of five
public projects in Florida sponsored by Bloomberg
Philanthropies.

For Gilmore’s work, The
Yellow Walk, paid performers from the local communities
have been enlisted to continuously walk up and down an
800-foot-long yellow carpet installed in Coral Springs. Members of
the public are invited to join in, with the performers slowing down
or speeding up to match their pace, creating a sense of
companionship as strangers walk together.

The piece is somewhat reminiscent of Gilmore’s 2010 Public Art
Fund project, Walk the Walk, which saw performers
walking for hours on a raised yellow platform in Bryant Park.

Bloomberg’s Parkland and Coral Springs
program was announced in November 2018. The Michael
Bloomberg-run charity awarded the two cities a $1 million grant as
part of its annual Public Art Challenge, which has funded projects in cities
around the country since 2014.

The program is also funding projects by Carl Juste, Steven and
William Ladd, David Best, and R&R Studios (overseen by artists
Rosario Marquardt and Roberto Behar). Each work is part of
the Coral Springs Museum of Art’s art
therapy program. To mark the one-year anniversary of
the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School tragedy, Best erected
and ceremonially burned one of
his ornate wooden temples, a staple of Nevada’s annual Burning
Man gathering.

This week’s performance kicks off at 2 p.m. on Friday, and
concludes on Sunday afternoon. The first 1,000 attendees will take
home a t-shirt designed by Gilmore and created with assistance from
local community members.

Gilmore is the recipient of the Anonymous Was Woman
Award, the Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome, and
the Art Prize Jury
Award.

“Kate Gilmore: The Yellow Walk” is on view at the Coral
Springs Art Walk, NW 31st Court, Coral Springs, Florida, November
8–10, 2019. 

The post How One Performance Artist in Florida Is Bringing
Together a Wounded Community With a Little Help From Michael
Bloomberg appeared first on artnet News.