[Archived] City Announces 2020 Artist for Alexandria’s Waterfront Park Public Art Series

For Immediate Release: May 10, 2019

Meet the Artist: Wednesday, May 22, 7 pm at Blackwall Hitch, 5 Cameron St.

The Department of Recreation, Parks and Cultural Activities’ Office of the Arts named Olalekan Jeyifous as the next artist to create a public art installation in Waterfront Park in Spring 2020.

Based in Brooklyn, Jeyifous was recently commissioned, along with Amanda Williams, to create the forthcoming Shirley Chisholm Monument in Brooklyn. He previously created public art at the 2017 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in California, Cleveland’s Public Square, and Starbucks’ flagship store in Chicago.

To begin, Jeyifous will visit Alexandria and meet residents, gathering inspiration for a design to come in Fall 2019. The public is encouraged to meet him and learn about his creative process on Wednesday, May 22 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. The reception will be in the Crow’s Nest at Blackwall Hitch on 5 Cameron Street in Alexandria. Call 703.746.5566 or arts@alexandriava.gov to RSVP or request reasonable disability accommodations.

The park currently features Mirror Mirror, created by SOFTlab and Michael Szivos, through November 2019. Jeyifous’ art will be the second for the series Site See: New Views in Old Town. Selected by a task force and approved by the Alexandria Commission for the Arts, he will create an original site-specific work inspired by Alexandria.

The Office of the Arts amplifies Alexandria’s reputation as an arts destination. The Site See public art series is an annual rotation of temporary installations that showcases world-class artwork that captures that public’s imagination. For additional information, visit the City’s Public Art at Waterfront Park project page.

For more information or to request reasonable disability accommodation, contact Diane Ruggiero at diane.ruggiero@alexandriava.gov or 703.746.5590, Virginia Relay 711. 

About the Artist
Olalekan Jeyifous’s received a bachelor’s of architecture from Cornell University. His work has been exhibited at the Studio Museum in Harlem, the MoMA, the Vitra Design Museum and the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain. He received grants and fellowships from the New York Foundation of the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts and the Brooklyn Arts Council. He’s completed artist residencies with the Headlands Center for the Arts, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, and the Drawing Center’s Open Sessions program, and was a Wilder Green Fellow at the MacDowell Colony. Learn more at vigilism.com.