Migration

Permanent Heritage Walk, Interpretive Artworks at Kingsborough Houses, Brooklyn, NY USA, 2025

Jerome Haferd Studio & Creative Urban Alchemy

Client: Public Housing Community Fund
Location: Crown Heights, Brooklyn, NY
Material: Aluminum, Galvanized and Milled Steel
Year: 2025
Team: Jerome Haferd, Ifeoma Ebo, Pedro Cruz Cruz, and Violet Greenberg

The Exodus and Dance Storywalk at Kingsborough Houses is a place-based, interpretive public artwork that blends historic preservation with community storytelling. The design team, led by Haferd and Ebo, engaged Kingsborough Houses residents, local artists from the Fulton Art Fair, and cultural historians to ensure the installation reflects authentic community voices. Over the course of months-long workshops, participants shared memories, drawings, and stories that shaped the visual language of the work.

The 35 steel sculptures, distributed throughout the campus, are inscribed with illustrations that draw from Egyptian and other diasporic motifs and Barthé’s own sculptural vocabulary. Each piece features a mix of archival and contemporary material, including oral histories from residents, historic accounts of Barthé’s life and work, personal memories of Exodus and Dance, affectionately known as “The Wall”, and quotes on the meaning of community, extended family, and resilience from Kingsborough House residents.

This network of sculptures forms a site-specific, environmental work that functions both as a gathering point and wayfinding. In the evenings, the lighting features integrated into each structure will illuminate the pathways and plazas of Kingsborough Houses, guiding visitors and residents from neighboring thoroughfares towards Barthé’s frieze. The sites not only celebrate the restored Exodus and Dance but also invite residents and visitors to encounter moments of joy, resistance, and collective identity embedded in the daily life of Kingsborough.

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