Next time you stop at the observation deck at Greenport’s Mitchell Park, you’ll notice some new additions: namely a photo viewfinder disguised as a wooden captain’s wheel.
“A Port of Views,” an art project created by Flanders artist Andrea Cote, was unveiled on May 30 and will remain in Greenport until Sept. 27.
The project was originally displayed at Floyd Memorial Library in Greenport from Dec. 28 to Feb. 7. Cote created the project, however, to be displayed in full at Mitchell Park.
“When you make a piece that’s for a particular site it’s always a surprise when you see it completed in that kind of vision that you have,” Cote said. “It’s been a while since I did an installation project where I envisioned what it looked like in a space. It completely outshined my expectations.”
The centerpiece of the exhibit is a three-dimensional glass and wooden structure resembling a captain’s wheel. It contains negatives of eyes of living and deceased members of the Greenport community and features a cut-out window. Viewers can spin the wheel and look through the sets of eyes that appear in the window.
At the library a panoramic photograph of Mitchell Park was placed on the wall behind the wheel to give the sense of seeing Greenport through another’s eyes. At the outdoor display no panoramic is necessary as viewers can look though the captain’s wheel and see Mitchell Park’s horizon.
“[My vision] was to create something that a viewer would encounter onsite, that would draw their attention and conjure up this sense of standing in the spot where predecessors stood and people in town whose ancestors go back in time and maybe you can look ahead at your future,” Cote said.
Videos of some of the participants accompany the captain’s wheel, giving a deeper background into the history of the five Greenport families chosen for the project.
Cote said the videos will be screened throughout the summer. She will also host conversations with the participants at the Floyd Memorial Library. No official dates have been chosen for either event.
