FLOW.15: Sharon Ma

The Project: hello

Located at the touchdown of the 103rd Street pedestrian bridge from Manhattan, Sharon Ma’s hello welcomes and celebrates the neighbors of Randall’s Island Park by highlighting the enthusiasm and warmth generated by this simple word. Comprising five ten-foot-tall letters planted with succulent plants, this living, vertical garden functions as the “voice” of the landscape, calling to all who pass. Ma’s goal is to invite photography with the piece, extending the medium into a public space and a larger scale in order to record and share visitor interaction. Ma’s hello invokes familiar “Greetings from …” postcards of a previous era, and calls upon us to create and share our own digital messages with Randall’s Island Park as background.

The Artist: Sharon Ma

Sharon Ma creates works of art that combine elements of photography, archaeology, and sculpture to show how people curate their lives and experiences. She compares the transience of human life to the ever-changing form of nature. Her works point at the human quest for immortality, the personalization of everyday things and their elevation into grandeur, and the evolving definition of self against shifting environments. Ma studied at New York University (BA, 2002), Yale University (MA research, 2006), and New School University (MFA, 2013).