All materials are copyright of Linda Price-Sneddon 2010
An Exchange Between Artists Liz Nofziger and Linda Price-Sneddon and the Landscape and History of the South End’s Villa Victoria and the town of Lawrence: “Boston Neck: PigeonWalk” and “Boston Neck: Where the Water Meets the Land”.
This project developed from mutual respect and the desire to bring our visions together through collaboration and exchange. We have both found collaboration to be a growth experience, offering a unique opportunity to learn and see through the eyes of the other. The Exchange Project collaboration between Villa Victoria Gallery and the Essex Art Center provided us with an ideal venue for exchange.
The works in the show evolved from several video-shooting expeditions around the physical site of each gallery. We keyed into the history of the land and its people, looking for traces of the past in the visual landmarks of today. The significance of water became a primary focus that joined Lawrence and Villa Victoria, in the case of Lawrence, the Merrimac River and the Stone Dam, a mighty presence critical to the textile history of Lawrence. And, in the case of Villa Victoria, the absence of water from the time when Washington Street was effectively a land bridge to the marshes of the South End. This combined with the overlay of the island culture of Puerto Rico upon the Villa Victoria neighborhood became fertile ground for our collaboration.
We would like to thank the Boston Public Library’s Aaron Schmidt for access to the pictorial history of the South End and Villa Victoria landscape. Sister Carlotta Duarte’s 1970’s portraits of the new Villa Victoria neighborhood, it’s people and their domestic interiors provided a rich source of inspiration for the project. This in combination with maps and pre-photo etchings of the landscape of each neighborhood grounded us and prompted contemplation of that which changes, and that which stays the same.
Title: That Which Changes, That Which Stays the Same. 2010.
Dimensions: 11.5’ by 8 ft. by 7 ft.
Materials: Paper, tape, chair, draperies, pipe cleaners, 3 video loops.
Video projection- Boston Neck: PigeonWalk. 6:30 min.
Large monitor loop- Boston Neck: Where the Water Meets the Land. 3:35 min.
Small monitor loop- Rosewater. 3:01 min.