Client: Long Island City Partnership

Overview

Ribbon was designed as a transformative communal platform for people to connect, share, and learn each other’s versions of Long Island City. The flowing movement of the design acts like a piece of ribbon guiding you off your path and into areas you might have not once explored. It playfully disrupts your daily routine while encouraging memorable spontaneous interactions with the surrounding space, the work, and others in new ways. Its playful gesture wraps around framing different moments throughout several pedestrian pathways, communal spaces, bus stops, subway entrances, and bike stations. Each component becomes a functional open-ended landmark that adapts to the user transforming into places to sit, converse, play, workout, and more. On each kinetic unit are printed love letters to Long Island City written by the community. These love letters are being collected and added over time as they are submitted by the community through both physical and digital surveys throughout the work’s duration. The love letters submitted range from poems, stories, quotes, and more from various community members and visitors in the city ranging from 2 to 80 years old. These love letters inspire an open conversation about what the city means to different people in different parts of their lives.

Goals

As we begin to slowly be reintroduced back into social environments, we are becoming increasingly more aware of the need for more inclusive ways to reconnect with one another within the public realm. Ribbon was developed as a semi-permanent installation that looks at new ways of adapting existing spaces and infrastructure to become communal platforms for social activity and communal interaction through open-ended play design. Sparking memorable experiences that keep encouraging people to come back and engage with the work, the surrounding spaces, and each other in new ways. The work comes to life through the engagement of its users reflecting the identity and strength of the diverse Long Island City community, while serving as a reestablished connection to one’s neighbors.

Process

Ribbon was designed by The Urban Conga in collaboration with Hive Public Space. The spatial intervention was developed as a part of the LIC (Re)Connects series produced by Hive as a way to evoke communal connection within a multitude of areas throughout Long Island City, NY. To make this project happen, it took a large amount of collaboration between the design teams, several local businesses, NYC Parks and Recreation, Boyce Technologies, and the Long Island City Partnership. The project was developed in modular forms to allow easy disassembly and the ability to be transported into other spaces within the city over time. As it travels around, it will continue to share the communities’ love notes provided in each area and display the various perceptions of the city and what it has provided for different community members.

Additional Information

Samples of Love Letters submitted: You became our home during the pandemic and you helped us get through. From beautiful walks by the water to social distance hangouts with neighbors who became great friends you up for us. We love your breweries and restaurants and were so pleasantly surprised to find such a warm community during a difficult time. - Alexa and Robert 26 | Thank you for being the place for many firsts- My first own place, first full job, first step into the real world. What a beautiful city to grow up and fall in love. - Jasmine 22 | Your growth and resiliency are impressive proving LIC an amazing place to live and work! - Anonymous 68 | We love taking walks down your shady streets and making friends with everyone that notices us. -Tang and Gelly 4 | We've drifted in and out of each others lives for years like fair-weathered friends. Whenever I sit and gaze out over at the big city I know this magical feeling will never fade; day or night, sun or snow, we both know this is where we'll always meet. - Anonymous 37