A Temporary Art Installation on the High Line with 4000 Copies of The Handmaid's Tale

Become a paid member to listen to this article

Yesterday morning, a new temporary art installation arrived in the Chelsea Market passage on the High Line, formerly the home of Spencer Finch’s work, The River That Flows Both Ways. The new interactive work is by graphic artists Paula Scher and Abbott Miller and holds 4,000 free copies of The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood’s bestselling dystopian novel that is the inspiration for the the Hulu television series of the same name starring Elizabeth Moss, from Mad Men, which premiered last night.

Photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Hulu.

As people take the book, the art piece becomes deconstructed “to reveal powerful messages of female empowerment and anti-authoritarian resistance,” the press release states. One of the messages is “Nolite te Bastardes Carborundorum” (translation: Don’t Let the Bastards Grind You Down), the central battle cry of empowerment and survival from the classic novel.