Banner (Brewster Project)

The Brewster Project

Brewster, New York

July, 2001

A couple of summers back I was invited to contribute to a project in Brewster, New York, about 60 miles north of Manhattan. Participating artists were asked to propose a work for a specific location in town: a shop or storefront window, a café or restaurant, the commuter rail station, the library, the shut-down cinema, an outdoor public space. After a couple of visits, I decided on the façade of the Southeast Museum, a 19th century red-brick former playhouse, now a small museum dedicated to the portrayal of local history. 

Brewster is a town of roughly 1500, with a smalltownish main street running parallel to, and just above the Croton River. It is also home to what was described to me as “hundreds” of undocumented Latin Americans, mostly Guatemalan, and almost all men, that line the high street each morning in search of work, and live grouped together in small flats mainly above or just behind the strip of shops which comprise this central corridor. The men frequent a few of these stores just opposite The Southeast Museum. 

While the museum celebrates a romanticized, heroic version of more than 200 years of selective immigrant labor – farmers, iron-ore miners, the 4000 men who constructed the aqueduct system supplying water to Manhattan – it reflects nothing of the present situation. In general, the town is noticeably ambivalent with regard to its Latino population; and although they are a significant part of the local economy, they are considered a nuisance.  

On the façade of the Museum hung a banner printed with its name, logo, and the slogan: “Discover History and Community.” I wondered to what history and which community it referred. After some negotiation, the Museum allowed me to substitute their banner with one that I produced; and to leave it up for the duration of the project. My banner was identical to theirs, except mine was in Spanish. The banner was donated to the museum at the end of the exhibition. It’s now theirs, to decide what to do with.

— Stephan Pascher (from a lecture given in Malmö, 2003)

Press Release, Christopher Ho