6. Havah… to breathe, air, life at Madison Square Park and the Courthouse of the Appellate Division

Shahzia Sikander, Witness (2023) in Madison Square Park for Havah...to breathe, air, life, 2023. Photo by Yasunori Matsui. Courtesy of the Madison Square Park Conservancy.
Shahzia Sikander, Witness (2023) in Madison Square Park for Havah…to breathe, air, life, 2023. Photo by Yasunori Matsui. Courtesy of the Madison Square Park Conservancy.

On view at Madison Square Park and the nearby Courthouse of the Appellate Division is Havah… to breathe, air, life, a multimedia exhibition. Created by artist Shahzia Sikander, Havah… to breathe, air, life marks the first collaboration between the Madison Square Park Conservancy and the courthouse, as well as Sikander’s first major outdoor work. Its namesake “havah” translates to “air” or “atmosphere” in Urdu and “Eve” in Arabic, Hebrew, and other languages. The exhibition features two sculptures of female figures created to confront symbols of power and justice to reassess progress in the political and social advancement of women. While historically, justice has been portrayed in the form of a blindfolded woman holding scales to symbolize her impartiality and the balance of power, the eyes of Sikander’s figures are wide open.

At Madison Square Park visitors can view the golden sculpture Witness, which bears a distinct steel hoop skirt adorned with a calligraphic mosaic whose surface maps the word “havah” in Arabic and was inspired by the Appellate Division courthouse’s stained-glass ceiling dome. For Sikander, the appendages of the sculpture are meant to suggest tree roots and the self-rootedness of the female form. Also on view at Madison Square Park is Sikander’s 2020 video animation Reckoning and an augmented reality experience entitled Apparition. Visitors to the park can use Snapchat to scan a code for the AR experience featuring colorful particles and ghostlike images of the courthouse figure. On the rooftop of the courthouse the second sculpture, NOW, can be found resting atop a base of a lotus plant, a symbol of wisdom. The sculpture is surrounded by nine male lawgivers including Confucius, Justinian, and Moses, making it the first female figure to be installed in the space. Havah… to breathe, air, life can be viewed until June 4, 2023.