Installation artist Jonathan Sparks talks to Brooklyn Arts Council about reclaiming the skyline from Bushwick’s high-rise apartments for the neighborhood’s residents.
One is hard-pressed to find a building that represents Bushwick’s overlapping cultures better than the modest church tucked between Himrod and Stanhope at 176 Saint Nicholas Avenue. Many locals working at the apex of social justice and community outreach proudly call the centuries-old edifice home: Members of the Mayday Collective rely on the space for their organizing efforts; the youthful congregation of Bushwick Abbey makes use of it for worship; so too do the congregants of Iglesia de la Santa Cruz, an Episcopalian establishment frequented by the neighborhood’s storied Latinx community.
And now, thanks to the power of art, the building at 176 Saint Nicholas Avenue is encouraging casual passersby to pause to appreciate its brick walls and the people who inhabit them.
For the installation artist and 2019 Brooklyn Arts Fund recipient Jonathan Sparks, the church on Saint Nicholas is so much more than a meeting place; it’s a beacon representing everything for which Bushwick – the community that gifted us with Mae West, Rosie Perez, and 6ix9ine – stands: Heritage. Diversity. Solidarity. Creativity. And now, it has the illumination to match.
Jonathan Sparks
Lights Over Bushwick
“As the COVID-19 pandemic reached its peak this past spring, Bushwick residents – intuitive and grateful – began throwing open their windows to cheer, applaud, and clang pots and pans in honor of the city’s essential workers. ”
Shortly after, the church at 176 Saint Nicholas lent its own red brick voice to the festivities, its steeple beaming a commemorative blue light throughout the neighborhood.
Conceived by Jonathan and Bushwick Abbey’s Reverend Vince Anderson and Clara Santamaria, the installation – fittingly titled “Lights Over Bushwick” – has added an ultra-contemporary overlay to the understated church’s steeple. The story of how the project came into fruition is certainly one about creating public art; yet it is also one about community collaboration and going with the flow of daily life.
After several years of familiarizing himself with Bushwick Abbey and its first-class community arts programming, the artist entered talks with congregants about creating the work.
“At the end of 2018, we started talking about a project that I could work with them on. I have done a number of interactive light installations,” Jonathan explains. “There’s an old midcentury modern steeple atop the church where each side has a pattern of open and closed squares. I thought it would be really cool to fill in the open squares with lightboxes. We began discussing what sort of installation that could be and what it would mean in the larger conversation of what a steeple is in a historical context and what it could be now.”
Originally modeled after military watchtowers, the religious steeple came into prominence around 600 A.D. The architectural feature would evolve dramatically with time, growing taller and more ornate. While the one topping the structure at 176 Nicholas Avenue is of modest height, its antiquity alone incites reverence. Even those of a more secular persuasion can find beauty and a sense of community within a steeple’s sky-climbing layers of column, spire, and shingling that communicate an important place for gathering and meditation.
Throughout conception, Jonathan and his collaborators never stopped thinking about Bushwick residents and the neighborhood’s ever-changing terrain. “Bushwick is a very gentrifying neighborhood that is very Latinx. Over the past few years, a lot of high-rise buildings have come in. It was important that the project acknowledge that,” Jonathan notes.
“In addition to the idea that people can control the installation, it can also be used to mark occasions. We were able to add our ‘voice’ into the 7:00 PM celebration,” he says.
Lights Over Bushwick
“We also wanted to share this piece with Iglesia de la Santa Cruz, as the congregation has used the same building for fifty or sixty years. The building and groups that use it are at the intersection of what Bushwick is,” he says, alluding to the neighborhood’s robust Puerto Rican and Dominican enclaves. Once comprised of Irish- and Italian-Americans, Bushwick’s demographics shifted after those of European descent migrated to the suburbs after World War II. Currently Bushwick is home to the most robust Latinx community in Brooklyn. “We wanted to provide some semblance of control over their skyline; for people in the neighborhood walking by to look up and think, ‘I can change the color of this thing.”
Once “Lights Over Bushwick” was devised, Jonathan and his collaborators at Bushwick Abbey began looking for grants to support such an undertaking.
As luck would have it, they encountered Brooklyn Arts Council.
“The Brooklyn Arts Fund came up during that search, so I attended an info session and we got together a proposal,” he says. “And we got the grant.”
“The proverbial ‘New York minute’ exists for a reason. Opportunities, discoveries, and crises arise at all hours of the day and night. These instances hold the power to throw one’s calendar into tumult in a matter of seconds. No group understands this more keenly than artists like Jonathan, who live their creative lives at the mercy of funding cycles, commissions, and their own strokes of genius. As 2019 began, the artist realized that the installation would have to wait.”
“I was planning on creating the installation this time last year. That was the goal. We did a lot of the pre-fabrication work last winter and installing it once the weather got nice,” Jonathan explains. “But, as it goes, things got crazy and I wasn’t able to get around to it until the end of last year.”
Ironically, Jonathan would hit the ground running with “Lights Over Bushwick” in 2020: a year that seems to boast more twists, turns, and New York minutes than all the rest.
“This year, I was able to quickly get things up and running,” he says. “The planned launch was supposed to be March 21 or 22 of this year. Bushwick Abbey wanted to have this up to coincide with Lent.”
But then, COVID-19 began to spread across the city, disproportionately impacting New Yorkers in neighborhoods like the one in which Jonathan lives and works.
“When COVID hit, we realized that we couldn’t simply ask people to come hang out when we are supposed to be doing the opposite,” he explains. “We began to think about the changes we could make so that the installation could be relevant and maybe contribute something different to the community. Around that time, the seven o’clock applause celebration for essential workers began. Then it clicked: We could do something around that.”
Slightly over years after its initial conception, Jonathan’s installation arrived right on time, illuminating the skyline to remind locals that, though this is a time of substantial hardship, we have so much to be grateful for: including one another.
Currently, the steeple at 176 Saint Nicholas, illuminated in celebration of LGBTQ Pride Month, is making use of the full spectrum of colors with which it is programmed.