Moody

A meditation on place, power, and persecution in Gravesend, Brooklyn.

Site-specific projections and spoken word poetry tell the story of Lady Deborah Moody’s founding of Gravesend, Brooklyn in 1643.  

Lady Deborah Moody was the only woman to start a village in Colonial America. The civil and religious liberties granted in her town patent are reflected in her equitable community plan, which was the first grid design of New York City.

Crafted as an urban intervention in how we honor the memory and history of our cities and the people who built them, this ephemeral tribute of light and sound tells Moody’s story in a way distinctly at odds with typical monuments based in bronze and permanence, disproportionately reserved for men.

Shot guerilla-style, the process of display and documentation was a practice in itself of being a small woman alone at night in a big city. Made vulnerable by the craft and the equipment, a nimble setup of only a pocket projector and a DSLR was used to make Moody.