Courtyard Coalition

Courtyard Coalition is a process-focused program that highlights MoMA PS1’s Courtyard as a cultural and spatial asset for critical questions at the intersection of cultural institutions, civic space, and urban life. In its inaugural presentation in Homeroom, the initiative invites conversation around a sustainable and impactful future for PS1’s Courtyard.

The space in Homeroom features an ongoing participatory mapping project that looks at Long Island City’s past and present. Visitors are invited to draw, write, and remember experiences with the Courtyard and imagine future activations of the space. The mapping project asks: What aspects of Long Island City do we want to keep, and remember from the past? What are the communities, spaces, and initiatives we want to recognize today? What are our hopes for the future, and how can the Courtyard be a meaningful piece of this constellation? Visitors can also use the space to rest and recharge while delving deeper into frameworks for cultural organizing and curating today by perusing books from the library.

Courtyard Coalition was initiated by a series of internal conversations among PS1 and its collaborators—including artists, architects, urbanists, community organizers, neighbors, social justice leaders, ecologists, technologists, and designers—during summer 2020 and fall 2021. These conversations identified key questions and areas of inquiry about the Courtyard as an experimental site of shared engagement.