The Keepers will appear in the Penn Station Neighborhood on Friday, September 22, 2023

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 25, 2023, NYC — The Keepers is a performance art intervention created by longtime NYC cultural provocateur, Ed Woodham – scheduled for Friday, September 22 in three different locations around the Penn Station neighborhood (The Church of St. John the Baptist at 6:30 a.m., Gimbel’s Skybridge at 8:30 a.m., and the demolished Hotel Pennsylvania at 10:30 a.m.). Woodham is the founder/director of the annual public art festival Art in Odd Places, which has taken place each October across 14th Street in Manhattan since 2005.

The Keepers – a durational still performative group action – aims to bring attention to the blatant demolition of the Penn Station neighborhood’s historic buildings, urban fairy tale propaganda of luxury-city infinite growth, and the disregard of the natural limits of density. Also, look for Keeper Chasers (or simply Chasers) hobbyists (like storm chasers) who obsessively follow The Keepers to different sites for adventure, scientific investigation, and reporting to news and media coverage. In a phone interview an anonymous Chaser, they explained in abundant detail that The Keepers appear when life is out of balance with nature in response to the gentrification and rapid mass development of urban areas where the importance of the mixed-use district, history of the area, and the natural environment has been ignored. “The Keepers are a life form living on the border between animal and plant consciousness,” said the Chaser. “They disrupt conventions, identities, and norms. The Keepers are aberrations in response to the rapid mass redevelopment of urban areas where the importance of the diverse community, chronicled past of the neighborhood, and the natural environment has been disregarded.” (See photo).

The Keepers September activation has been commissioned by the Preservation League of NYS as part of a New York State Council on the Arts-funded project drawing attention to the League’s Seven to Save endangered historic sites across the state through artistic interventions. The Penn Station Neighborhood, which is threatened with needless and large-scale demolition, was identified as a Seven to Save in 2022. This project is organized in partnership with the Empire Station Coalition.