Location: The Brooklyn Historical Society
128 Pierrepont Street at Clinton Street, Brooklyn Heights
Taught by educator Angela Kramer

In this family workshop, participants will reflect on the relationship between Brooklyn past and present by making their own three-dimensional accordion books, or dioramas, using copies of old and modern maps, photographs, and other images. We will be working in the spectacular Othmer Library at the Brooklyn Historical Society, which holds the original versions of many of the documents we will be using in our artworks.

The workshop is part of the Battle Pass Project , a Proteus Gowanus initiative that explores ideas of conflict, history and memory by marking sites of the Battle of Brooklyn with workshops, performances and public installations. We encourage you to visit Battle Pass – Revolution IV, an installation currently up at the Old Stone House through June 23th.

Also, visit the Battle Ground exhibit at Proteus Gowanus, up through June, where you can see Molinology, Angela Kramer’s installation about historic tide mills along the Gowanus, one of which played a seminal role in the Battle of Brooklyn, and where you can have the “strangely pleasurable” experience of grinding wheat into flour.

The Battle Pass Family Workshop Series is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Conceived and directed by Paul Benney

Battle on Bergen is a site-specific performance incorporating elements of dance, street theater, puppetry, and live music to depict certain events from the Battle of Brooklyn, drawing parallels between the American Revolutionary War and political events today.

The performance is co-directed by Selene Colburn and features David Freeman, James Hannaham, Aaron Stanley, Willis Bigelow, Alan Balicki, Katie Merz, John Bauman, Tyler Sussman, and J.J. Hill-Wood.

A reading of Walt Whitman’s poem about the Battle of Brooklyn, The Centenarian’s Story, will follow, arranged by The Walt Whitman Project. 

Battle on Bergen will engage with the public as it explores the drama of the Battle of Brooklyn, which took place on August 27^th, 1776 weeks after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Sometimes forgotten in the very neighborhoods where it took place, it was the largest battle of the American Revolutionary War.

As part of the Battle Pass series of public art installations and performances marking sites of the Battle of Brooklyn, the performance will take place at the site of “Battle Pass – Revolution II,” an installation by Sasha Chavchavadze suggesting ship masts planted in the ground as a symbol of resistance by Revolutionaries before the Battle. A collaboration with the  NYC DOT Urban Art Program, the installation incorporates phrases from Whitman’s poem about the Battle, The Centenarian’s Story.

To learn more about the Battle of Brooklyn and upcoming commemorative events, visit the Old Stone Househttp://theoldstonehouse.org/

Special thanks to Kim Maier and Maggie Weber at The Old Stone House; Greg Trupiano of the Walt Whitman Project; the NYC DOT Urban Art Program; The Boerum Hill Association; Angela Kramer Murphy; Bob Sullivan; Michael Swaine; Local 61.

“Do you hear the clank of the muskets? …In the midst of you stands an encampment very old…”

—Walt Whitman, “The Centenarian’s Story”

Join us for the opening reception of Battle Pass, an interdisciplinary homage to the Revolutionary Battle of Brooklyn. Revolution I includes a collaborative installation (on view through March 31), and a reception workshop and performance. These events will take place at GRIDSPACE, a Crown Heights art space, located at 112 Rogers Avenue/corner of Sterling.

Battle Pass - Revolution I

Installation by Sasha Chavchavadze, Eva Melas, Robyn Love, and Angela Kramer Murphy

The reception will include:
A cockade-making workshop with Robyn Love
A Battle Pass performance by Paul Benney

Proteus Gowanus is pleased to announce this first in a series of public installations, workshops and performances paying homage to the Revolutionary Battle of Brooklyn at selected battle sites throughout Brooklyn. A collaborative group of artists, writers, historians and urban planners will draw parallels between past and present as they explore the complexity and devastation of war. The project marks an early start on our next theme year: BATTLE.

The first, biggest and arguably most important battle of the Revolutionary War is sometimes forgotten in the very neighborhoods where it occurred; the fields and marshes of 1776 are now a post-industrial urban landscape that includes a Federal Superfund site. Battle Pass: Revolution I at Gridspace is located several hundred feet from Bedford Pass, once a rocky outcropping that played a decisive role in the Battle of Brooklyn.

The installation can be seen 24 hours a day in the GRIDSPACE storefront window from March 2nd – March 31st

To reach GRIDSPACE take the 2, 3, 4 or 5 train to Franklin