The High Line and the Chanel Culture Fund have commissioned artist Alison Nguyen to create a new film examining the overlooked history of one of New York’s best-known cultural landmarks.
Prior Occupants, as Nguyen’s work is titled, is the fifth installment in the High Line Originals series and the second produced in partnership with the luxury brand’s arts initiative. The film will premiere on September 8 and screen daily through early November on the High Line Channel, the park’s public video space at 14th Street.
Rather than focusing on the High Line itself, Nguyen turns her attention to the nearby Westbeth Artist Housing, a former Bell Laboratories complex where talking movies, television, and other technological breakthroughs were developed and where part of the Manhattan Project’s research for the atomic was once conducted. In 1970, it was converted into affordable artist housing, whose notable past tenants have included Robert De Niro Sr. and Diane Arbus. The film draws on archival materials, interviews with residents, and choreographed performances to explore how traces of that industrial past continue to shape the neighborhood today.
Nguyen is one of the most closely watched artists working with moving image today, having exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art and the Storefront for Art and Architecture. She will also be included in the upcoming Busan Biennale, opening later this month. Her work often blends documentary research with speculative fiction to explore technology, institutions, and cultural memory.
The commission continues a partnership launched last year between the High Line and the Chanel Culture Fund, which supports public-facing contemporary art projects. Following its New York presentation, Prior Occupants will travel to London for exhibition as part of Chanel Culture Fund’s “The Window” program.
