Rockaway Art Week
Group Exhibition
still from Joseph Cochran II’s Only You (And You Alone), 32 minute video collage and meditationSamantha Sutcliffe, De-transition Transcript, 8.5x11 in. Xerox, 2019.Johnny Scuotto, Death Fear Tragedy, Collage, 2023from left to right Johnn Scuotto, End the Cult of Victimhood and Death Fear Tragedy, Lauren Massie Fill the Gaping Hole and Samantha Sutcliffe Under the Shadows of...
Responding to Rockawy Art Week’s theme of Liminal Space Uncensored New York’s artists used the feelings of tension as a jump off point to explore a plethora of related topics.
In our society oppositional views on gender, race, drug use, victim mentality and gun violence tear us apart. This group show, curated by Samantha Sutcliffe with assistance of Joseph Cochran, will have a experimental film installation by Joseph Cochran that explores the Rockaway’s past and present, never before seen images and interview transcripts from Samantha Sutcliffe’s archive on isolation, a black and white film photograph confronting addiction by Lauren Massie and Johnny Scuotto’s collage about the demographis of violence and a garment about the cult like victim mentality portrayed in media.
“Far Rockaway and its surrounding areas represent the perfect, most visible remnant of the infamous Robert Moses’ power. His rockaway improvement plan which began in the mid-twentieth century changes the Rockaways from a bungalow-laden resort town to a segregated quagmire of public housing, isolating wealthy communities and Moses’ own passion projects such as Riis Beach.
To this day the Rockaways remain one of the most impoverished resource-deprived communities in the city. While less than 5 percent of the burrough’s total population lives there, approximately 30 percent of its public housing stock can be found on the penninsula. Bombarded by climate disasters and lethargic governmental aid, Moses’ vision now lives on as a dilapitaded husk, more notable for its crime and apathy from the public.” - Joseph Cochran