Damon Davis

In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt began one of the most iconic artistic endeavors of the 20th century—the Works Project Administration, or WPA. In a program called Federal Project Number One, thousands of artists fanned across the country to create photographs, paintings, murals, plays, music, all in the service of documenting life in America during a turning point in American history.

We are at another turning point in America. Enter Federal Project No. 2.
Over the course of 2018, and into 2019, Topic Studios has commissioned 50 artists from across the United States to explore and showcase the diversity of contemporary life in America. Federal Project No. 2 will consist of artistic pairings, where we ask world-class photographers, visual artists, musicians, etcetera, to pick a work from the vast WPA archives that speaks to them, and then make new work in response to it.

Our goal is not unlike the first Federal Project: to find ways to showcase the richness of American life, seen through the eyes of American creators. While we can’t recreate the scope of the publicly funded work, we hope to retain some of its spirit.

Federal Project 2

Featuring: Various Artists

Locations

• #Americas
• #Collaboration
• #History
• #mixed-media