Jane Benson  
   


Mirror Globe (Mapping the New World), 2012
Mirror pieces, aluminum, oil paint, 14' x 66'

Commissioned by the NYC Department of Education and the NYC School Construction Authority Public Art for Public Schools Program, in collaboration with the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs Percent for Art Program.

Mirror Globe (Mapping the New World) is a world map, the east and west hemispheres of which are covered in mirror pieces. The artwork celebrates the diverse, multicultural community created, and nurtured by the school, and the thrilling, unknown world that is to be created by the stars of the future, the students.

The mirrored East and West oval hemispheres capture the reflection of every individual attending IS/HS 585. The meticulously laid out 1” mirror pieces (30,000 in total) creates a pixilated, flickering landscape of constantly evolving, vibrant student community. Full of color and movement the fractured surface of the mirrored hemispheres creates a unique mapping of this new world. This reflection of this new world is juxtaposed with the old world as the painting of an antique map is revealed between the mirror pieces. Mirror Globe (Mapping the New World) reflects the true nature of a young and exciting landscape that is to become the new world, capturing the future as it develops. Mirror Globe is a mosaic with a difference, not a static image that represents or symbolizes the community but rather a living mosaic; the school and its community is the mosaic.

IS/HS 585 is at the epicenter of the neighborhood’s multicultural community. Mirror Globe (Mapping the New World) embraces this diversity and focuses on the remarkable environment as a place of transformation, a place for imagining and embracing new realities. New worlds will be embraced everyday by the students of IS/HS 585 and Mirror Globe (Mapping the New World) stresses that it is only through searching for and embracing the unknown, new realities and new relationships that unimagined possibilities for the everyday can emerge.