Ellis Island is enveloped by a tremendous intensity of emotion. The passage
of countless souls has left behind a strong human presence anchored in its emptiness.
Like Pompeii, Ellis Island
combines the quality of time at a standstill together with life in perpetual motion. Like
a pebble or a piece of driftwood it bears witness to the passage of time, to change, to
nature's own path to what we see as chaos or decay.
Ironically this island of
contradictions will soon once more go through major changes. Whichever its fate, once the
cleanup crews arrive and the restoration begins, the magic that it holds today will be
swept away forever.
It is this magic that I have
attempted to preserve. I worked on Ellis Island for three months during the fall of 1983.
I wandered around alone, in silence, letting myself be guided by unknown forces beckoning
me this way or that, compelling me to return to the same places again and again or to
explore unlikely desolate corners of the endless maze.
Disturbed only by the sound of a
pigeon's wings or the approaching footsteps of another rare visitor, I saw the light
making its rounds, a little different every moment, every day, and yet the same.
I heard the voices of the
millions of people who came through here, building a temple with their highest joys and
deepest sorrows, men, women and children who made it through to a new life or who died
straining to look through a dusty mirror at what they knew they could not posses.
Eleni Mylonas, New York City
March 1984 |
"Three Gateways"
Poster, 27"W x 29"H
|
