Opening Night for the Film Includes a Talk with the Artist and Ali Rosa-Salas
The High Line today announced the upcoming world premiere of NYC Wisdom, a new film by Alicia Mersy, commissioned by the High Line as the third High Line Originals film. Using playful animation and video game aesthetics, NYC Wisdom captures deeply-felt, intimate learnings as expressed by everyday New Yorkers, a tribute to the unique opportunities for connection and community that exist in the city. The film’s premiere will be marked on September 10 at 6:30pm with a conversation between Mersy and Ali Rosa-Salas, Vice President of Visual and Performing Arts of Abrons Arts Center/Henry Street Settlement. NYC Wisdom will screen daily on a loop, starting at 5pm each evening, on the High Line in the covered passage at 14th Street, through November 12, 2024.
“Alicia Mersy’s new film commission for the High Line is a poignant reflection on the untapped healing power grid of New York,” said Taylor Zakarin, associate curator of High Line Art, who organized the film’s commission and exhibition. “NYC Wisdom is perfectly at home on the High Line, a setting that echoes the city lights, sounds, and energy of happenstance connections Mersy so affectingly depicts.”
NYC Wisdom is the High Line’s third commision for High Line Originals, a program supporting artists to create new video artworks. Born out of Mersy’s video practice, in which the camera becomes a catalyst for interpersonal connection, NYC Wisdom began as Mersy started to spontaneously film the “wisdom” she encountered around the city—building relationships with and interviewing construction workers, subway performers, halal food truck owners, knitters in the park, and characters on the street. NYC Wisdom ties together years of this footage, as the subjects share what brings them happiness, positivity, and energy.