Kate Browne, my wife, built the third in her series of Cocoons in Greenwood, Mississippi, during two weeks in July. The sculpture sits in a park on the banks of the Yazoo, which flows through downtown Greenwood, on the opposite side of the river from where bales of Delta cotton were once loaded onto riverboats for shipment. Cotton Row, as the strip was once know, now principally houses the offices of the Viking corporation (as in makers of all things kitchen). Keesler Bridge, in the background of some of these pictures, used to pivot on its center column to allow riverboats to past. Behind the bridge sits the Leflore Country Courthouse.
Greenwood was the site of intense Civil Rights activity in the early '60s, and in 1966, during the Meredith March (aka, the March Against Fear), where Stokely Carmichael chose to deliver his infamous Black Power speech.
Kids and adults from all over town eagerly pitched in to create this Cocoon. Kate will be posting images of the build and describing the process at her blog in the coming weeks. You can also get info there on her two earlier Cocoons, in Mexico City and upstate New York.
Sent from my iPhone
via youtube.com
Kate Browne is building one her Cocoons in Mexico City this week, at the Plaza de las Tres Culturas, a site dense with history.
The Plaza occupies roughly the same site as the main square of the pre-Columbian town of Tlatelolco, Tenochtitlán's great rival until 1473, when the Aztecs captured the town and killed its ruler by hurling him from the principal pyramid. However, Tlatelolco still remained the most important trading town in the region with a market which, according to the accounts of the conquistadors, was visited by 60,000 people every day. During the siege of Tenochtitlán by the Spaniards in 1521 Tlatelolco was the scene of the last desperate stand by the Aztecs. This event is remembered by means of a memorial tablet bearing the words "On 13 August 1521 Tlatelolco, so heroically defended by Cuauhtémoc, finally fell into the hands of Hernán Cortés. It was neither a triumph nor a defeat; it was the painful moment of birth of the Mexico of today, of a race of mestizos".
The square was designed by Mario Pani and completed in 1964. It takes its name from the fascinating juxtaposition of buildings from three different periods - Aztec pyramids and temples, a Spanish conventual church and modern tower blocks. In 1968 the police fired on a crowd which was demonstrating in the square and, according to unofficial estimates, killed some 250 people. In 1985 and 1986 it was covered with tents to provide shelter for the many who had been rendered homeless by the earthquake.</blockquote>
More about Kate's project on her blog, http://brownebarnes.com/cocoon
More on the plaza here: http://www.planetware.com/mexico-city/square-of-the-three-cultures-mex-df-stc.htm
via c-monster.net
"Evening Cocoon, by Kate Browne, in Cragsmoor, New York. Beginning today, Browne will be building a large cocoon in the Plaza Tlatelolco (sight of the infamous 1968 massacre) in Mexico City. It will be lit on March 21st, the first day of spring."