Subway Map Floating on a New York Sidewalk: Part 1 [The Biography of Francoise Schien]

For my final project in ARH 330 at Stony Brook University, I chose Subway Map Floating on a New York Sidewalk by Francoise Schein.

 
(obtained from Flickr: https://c1.staticflickr.com/7/6016/6005970012_0e02bf27c2_z.jpg)

Born in Brussels, Schein was a Belgian artist who studied urban design at Columbia University and architecture in La Cambre School in Brussels. In addition to being a visual artist, she is also an architect and urban planner. She has been developing a network of large urban mapping projects around the world. She focuses on cross-discipline projects that highlight the relationship between urban planning, ethics, citizenship, and art in general. (Francoise Schein's Projects). She currently lives in Paris.

She is the founder of INSCRIRE, a non-profit organization promoting public art throughout the world that emphasizes human rights principles and cultural diversity. Schein herself has lived throughout the world, and Subway Map Floating on a New York Sidewalk, along with her other works worldwide, focus on concepts of human rights. (Urban Media Archaeology)

After she left La Cambre School, she came to New York for 11 years to study urban design at Columbia University. Subway Map Floating on a New York Sidewalk is actually her first piece of art. At this time, she wasn't focusing her work on human rights. She starts doing this when she returns to Europe in 1989.

Her other works are located in such places as Lisbon, Stockholm, Haifa, and Berlin. She has designed a number of metro stations in various cities such as the Westhafenviertel station in Berlin, and the Universitetet station in Stockholm. After Berlin, she began work on the world's first "Garden of Human Rights" located in the Rhodendron-Park Bremen in Germany.

This first post is primarily a background of the artist, I have not actually visited the work yet, but I would like to get there before my next post (which will begin to piece apart this fascinating piece of public art). There are no subway stops that bring you directly there, but the closest station is supposedly the Prince Street N/R station, two blocks away.

Stay tuned for my next post, which will begin to explore this amazing work. I will also take my own pictures and post them here.

Works Cited

"Francoise Schein." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 28 June 2014. Web. 19 July 2014.

JONATHAN. "Subway Map Floating on a NY Sidewalk." Urban Media Archaeology. N.p., 12 Nov. 2011. Web. 19 July 2014.

Schein, Francoise. "About Françoise." Web log post. Francoise Scheins Projects. N.p., 2 June 2010. Web. 19 July 2014.