Sitting behind the wheel of a funky blue school bus, Annalisa Iadicicco brings environmental art projects to neighborhoods all over New York City.
She was raised in Anzio, near Rome, but found a connection to her personal history and to her career after settling here in 1997, when she was 21.
“I came to visit my father, an artisan, not chasing the American dream,” she said. “Here I discovered my love for photography and for found objects — rusty nails, corrugated metal, materials that connected me to my roots and to my grandmother’s farm.”
Before long, she found herself focusing on sculptures made of recycled materials. “Bumperman,” installed in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, is what she calls a “life-size superhero” made of car bumpers in a tribute to the immigrants of Willets Point. Her “Bottle to Bottle” house, outside Culture Lab LIC, is fashioned of rebar and 400 plastic laundry detergent containers that she invited residents to collect and decorate.
In 2016, Ms. Iadicicco spotted a blue bus parked outside her apartment. On a whim, she put a note on the windshield saying she wanted to buy it. For $2,500, the bus, which was built the same year she came to New York, was hers.
Since she rolled out the nonprofit Blue Bus Project, the vehicle has hosted over 150 public art workshops.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The post How an Environmental Artist Spends a Day in Her Workshop appeared first on New York Times.
