Grant Summary
Support for the artist’s ongoing work with Parisite, a community-based New Orleans skate park, and the youth who built it.
Keywords
Artist Statement
My work has typically been about justice and injustice: large gallery and museum installations that spotlight a forgotten piece of history or an overlooked community. And my work has done well in those mainstream venues. At the same time, I had a sort of parallel life. I was spending every free moment working to legalize a park built -- on public land, completely without permits -- by at-risk youth. This, I thought, was my real art -- the art direction of a vast imaginative play space, one that serves as a stage for a powerful and strangely moving performance art, and serves as a platform for healthy social structure. I'm not abandoning making gallery work. But with your help, I am pivoting toward the street, and toward the art of everyday life.
  • Legalize Me 2016, Skylar Fein, Digital photo. Photo by Musa Alves. Courtesy of the artist.

  • Skating during the first (illegal) build 2012, Skylar Fein, Digital photo. Courtesy of the artist.

  • I Am Parisite 2015, Skylar Fein, Digital photo. Courtesy of the artist.

  • This is Parisite 2013, Skylar Fein, Digital photograph. Courtesy of the artist.

  • Rainbow over Parasite 2017, Skylar Fein, JPG. Courtesy of the artist.

  • Parisite in Thrasher Magazine 2018, Skylar Fein, Photograph. Photo by Mike Heikkila for thrashermag.com.