THE FORTUNATE ISLANDS (2007)

Installed in Manhattan's Thomas Paine Park at Federal Plaza is a security booth, appropriated as a public habitat for canaries. A group of inverted video monitors, perched on synthetic tree branches, depicts surveillance feeds of canaries held in captivity at undisclosed locations.

Canaries originate from the Canary Islands, which were known as the Fortunate Islands in antiquity, and were once believed to reside at the edge of the world. This also references Lower Manhattan's financial nexus, maybe the most fortunate island on the planet, and alludes to the way many Manhattanites regard this sourthern-most neighborhood as residing at the edge of their world.