Mierle Laderman Ukeles, 2021

WHAT IS THIS LAND?
THE PEOPLE’S ENTRANCE

WHAT IS THIS LAND? THE PEOPLE’S ENTRANCE is my proposal for a very big public art work that responds to this fraught question that I am asking you in 2021. I envision a PATH that leads you through five large, different Gate/Arches–Arch/Gates and brings you to the Metal Bank Superfund Site. The PATH is an overall artwork. Each of the five Gate/Arches will be a different commissioned artwork. Each will become a station in time that reveals a meaning, or meanings, that this land had or could have. Each Gate/Arch reveals a period of time whose owners or “Responsibles” have defined and answered, or is in the process of creating an answer right now to the question: What is this Land?