Artist Paula Crown’s interactive piece, EMANARE will be installed at Rockefeller Center from Tuesday September 7 through September 30, 2020, encouraging visitors, both in-person and virtually, to send messages of positive intention emanating into the world.
Inspired by the Buddhist prayer wheel, participants contribute virtual message-in-a-bottle affirmations using a QR Code, recent examples including “Take it easy on yourself”, “You are made of strong stuff” and “Time to eat right” which begin to appear in a digital scroll against a backdrop of colors of soothing ethereal colors. Eventually these messages begin to layer, conjoin and merge into one another, transforming the work into a digital collage of each participant’s unique contribution.
Emanare, the Latin word for emanate, means to flow out, to send forth, and to emit. Using the available QR code (below), participants are prompted to write a positive message that they wish to share. Affirmations including “Take it easy on yourself”, “You are made of strong stuff” and “Time to eat right” begin to appear in a digital scroll against a backdrop of colors taken from the artist’s skyscape paintings. Eventually these messages layer, conjoin and merge into one another, transforming the work into a collection of each participant’s unique contribution.
What positive message do you want to emanate to the world today?
“Paula Crown’s interactive experience EMANARE creates a communal space for New Yorkers to speak their minds, spark their imagination and celebrate the human spirit through innovative art.” – EB Kelly, Tishman Speyer Managing Director overseeing Rockefeller Center
“In these disorienting times, how can we utilize positive and contemplative intentions to affect energy in the world? By engaging with affirmative ideas, I invite the viewer to add their positive emanation as an act of unity via collective activation – solo together.” – Paula Crown, Artist
Paula Crown (b. Marblehead, Mass) is a multimedia artist incorporating cutting-edge technology, social activism, and a commitment to sustainability in her studio practice. Crown holds an M.F.A. in painting and drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Her solo exhibitions include the Aspen Institute (2013), Dallas Contemporary (2014), Marlborough Gallery, New York (2015), The Goss-Michael Foundation, Dallas (2016), 10 Hanover, London (2017), Studio Cannaregio, Venice (2018) concurrent with the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale, and Fort Gansevoort, New York (2018). Recent public art installations include; JOKESTER in Aspen, CO (2018), Milwaukee, WI (2020); and the Miami Design District, Miami, FL (2018); #solotogether (Messages for the City), Times Square Arts, New York, NY, which traveled to the Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC (2020); and What Are You For?, For Freedoms Awakening Billboard, Boston, MA (2020).
She has participated in several group exhibitions internationally, notably For Freedoms at Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, NY (2016); For Freedoms: Where Do We Go From Here? At The International Center for Photography, New York, NY (2019); and This is America | USA Today at Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfoort, NL (2020). Crown’s works are in numerous public and private collections including Agnes Gund Collection, NY, Tishman Speyer Collection, NY, and The Goss-Michael Foundation in Dallas, TX.
In 2009, President Barack Obama appointed Crown to the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. She is a member of the board of trustees of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where she chairs the Education Committee. She also serves on the Aspen Institute Committee of the Arts.
Crown lives and works in Aspen, Colorado and Chicago, Illinois.
EMANARE will be on view at Rockefeller Center Plaza and 48th Street from September 7 through September 30, 2021. EMANARE is a digital artwork presented on LCD screens and activated by participants entering their contributions through QR code and website.
In addition, the artist donated her time to this years CowParadeNYC with her fabulous Paula Crown: Branded, found grazing at the Industry City Brooklyn Pasture.