All Photos By Gail
Prison Ship Martyrs’ Monument 2.0 (2015) was a guerilla action intended to refocus the national conversation on civil liberties and privacy two years after Edward Snowden’s highly politicized leaking of classified National Security Administration documents. In an act of solidarity with Snowden, artists Jeff Greenspan and Andrew Tider covertly installed this nameplate and hundred-pound bust (sculpted by Doyle Trankina) of the controversial figure at the Prison Ship Martyrs’ Monument in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene Park. Drawing on the significance of the monument as a memorial to more than 11,500 prisoners of war who died during the American Revolution, the work valorizes Snowden as a patriot among patriots.
Though the sculpture was removed within hours by police, its documentation circulated widely, and by the next evening the artists collective The Illuminator had replaced the bust with a projection in light.
Edward Snowden Bust Detail
Photographed in the Brooklyn Museum.
