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Ezra Wube
PROJECT ECOPOLIS
On the High Line at 14th Street
Ezra Wube creates lively mixed media animations made from paintings, collage, objects, and paper cutouts that narrate scenes of daily urban life across Brooklyn, Addis Ababa, and other cities around the world. Mixing audio recordings of the clamoring sounds of the places he profiles with shifting, cumulative collages, Wube brings to the fore the spirit of different locations.
Continuing his ongoing exploration of how we conceive of and exist within our cities and green spaces, Wube presents PROJECT ECOPOLIS (2024), a compilation of four short films commissioned by the High Line Network, with support from High Line Art. The work is the second Joint Art Initiative (JAI) commission, a program that explores how Network members can leverage public art to inspire civic discourse and deepen connections among the communities surrounding Network projects. For PROJECT ECOPOLIS, Wube collaborated with the High Line and three other High Line Network partners—Englewood Agro-Eco District (Chicago, IL), Buffalo Bayou (Houston, TX), and Waterfront Park (Seattle, WA)—to produce a short stop-motion film inspired by each site. The artist visited each organization and led its local community of students, older adults, local artists, and park visitors in workshops. The resulting works serve as joyful portraits of places: cutouts of cars, people, and animals shift around notable buildings, beloved parks, and major streets. Wube captures the essence of each location and the pressing issues they face, underscoring the power of collective storytelling and prompting reflection on the intricate relationship between people, urban infrastructure, and ecology.
The series of films will tour participating Network sites in 2024 and 2025, serving as a traveling exhibition to inspire conversations, forge connections, and celebrate community resilience.
Learn more about PROJECT ECOPOLIS and Joint Art InitiativeAbout Joint Art Initiative
The Joint Art Initiative explores how High Line Network members can leverage local communities and artists to provoke conversations around public art. The overarching objective is to use art to inspire civic discourse and deepen connections among the communities surrounding Network projects. Joint Art Initiative launched in 2019 with New Monuments for New Cities.
About the High Line Network
The High Line Network is a group of infrastructure reuse projects—and the people who help them come to life. As cities become denser and land for traditional parks becomes more scarce, residents are finding creative ways to bring greenspace to their neighborhoods. Projects in the High Line Network transform underutilized infrastructure into new urban landscapes. Redefining what a park can be, these hybrid spaces are also public squares, open-air museums, botanical gardens, social service organizations, walkways, transit corridors, and more. Learn more →
Artist bio
Ezra Wube (b. 1980, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He has held recent solo exhibitions at notable institutions, including the Yeh Art Gallery, Queens, New York (2023); Time Square Midnight Moment, New York, New York (2021); the High Line, New York, NY; Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia (2018); Museum of the Moving Image, Queens, New York (2017); Contemporary Art Centre, Riga, Latvia (2016); and University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa (2011). Notable group exhibitions include The Myth of Normal, MassArt Art Museum, Boston, Massachusetts (2023); This Place We Once Remembered, Wave Hill, Bronx, New York (2023); Entrelacs, La Cité internationale des arts, Paris, France (2022); Where Do We Stand?, The Drawing Center, New York, New York (2017); Video Studio: Meeting Points, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, New York (2016 – 2017); and Key Frames, Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, New York (2014). He has participated in prestigious international art exhibitions, including the Biennale d’Architecture d’Orléans, Orléans, France (2019); the Gwangju Biennale in Gwangju, South Korea (2018); the 21st Contemporary Art Biennial. Sesc_Videobrasil, São Paulo, Brazil (2018); and Bronx Calling: The Third AIM Biennial, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, New York (2015). Wube has received numerous awards and residencies, including the Wassaic Project Residency, Wassaic, New York (2024); Michael Richards Visual Arts Award, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York (2022); and the Smack Mellon Residency Program, Brooklyn, New York (2020). Additional notable recognitions include residencies at Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, New York (2019), and the Vermont Studio Center Residency, Johnson, Vermont (2016). He was also the recipient of the Emerging Artist Grant Award from the Rema Hort Mann Foundation (2015) and the Van Lier Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts (2013).
Support
The High Line Network is made possible by the founding support of The JPB Foundation.
Lead support for High Line Art comes from Amanda and Don Mullen. Major support is provided by Shelley Fox Aarons and Philip E. Aarons, The Brown Foundation, Inc. of Houston, and Charina Endowment Fund.
High Line Art is supported, in part, with public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the New York City Council, under the leadership of Speaker Adrienne Adams. High Line Accessibility is also supported, in part, by the New York City Council, with special thanks to Council Member Erik Bottcher.
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