Fanny Allié’s wooden sculpture in Queens is meant to be both a functional bench and a piece of art, aimed at raising awareness about homelessness. The public art installation, “A Bench for the Night,” resides in Long Island City as part of the Parks’ Art in the Parks program. The bench is also meant to highlight the lack of public seating and intimate social spaces available in the area.
According to a press release:
Allié’s wooden bench is shaped in the silhouette of a sleeping person, a reminder that a public bench is a potential bed for some New Yorkers. The dichotomous visual and emotional transformations that take place in an urban setting – how an object becomes a person, and how a person can become an invisible, ignored object – are embodied by the bench, which offers a critical view of how those who live on the street can become dehumanized.
This is Allié’s second sculpture to appear as a public artwork in a New York park.
