Join us as we continue to celebrate public art sculpture BEACON and pay tribute to pioneer electrical engineer and one-time Brooklyn resident, Lewis Howard Latimer.
In Spring 2021, the Lewis Latimer House Museum co-presented BEACON, a public art installation inspired by Lewis Latimer and his 1881 patent for the electric lamp and 1882 patent for processing carbon filament in the incandescent light bulb.
BEACON was designed by artist Shervone Neckles, in collaboration with the BEAM Center that guided youth in the skills needed to create the installation. It was first exhibited at the Lewis Latimer House Museum, then moved to Albee Square Plaza and has been on view in downtown Brooklyn. To read more about BEACON’s creation process, please visit the BEAM Center’s page.
We are excited to join the BEAM Center, as they facilitate a conversation on Lewis Latimer’s life and work in 19th Century Brooklyn.
Speakers for the conversation:
Shervone Neckles, BEACON artist, ;
Prathibha Kanakamedala, Brooklyn historian and scholar;
Ran Yan, Lewis Latimer House Museum Director;
Brian Cohen, Beam Center Director.
About BEAM Center:
Beam Center empowers young people to do spectacular things and puts creative and technical production practices, collaboration, agency, and real-world connections at the center of learning environments. Programs include in-school partnerships with 29 elementary, middle, and high schools throughout New York City and an after-school apprenticeship and employment programs where teens learn in-depth technical skills and STEM concepts, and train for paid summer or afterschool jobs. Beam Center’s approach is drawn from its ongoing work at Beam Camp, a summer camp in New Hampshire in its 16th year, where young people collaborate with builders and big thinkers to build ambitious, collaborative projects created with traditional and advanced tools and technologies.
About Shervone Neckles:
Shervone Neckles is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and community worker. Neckles’ draws inspiration from the duality and transitional nature of her Afro-Grenadian, American identity. Her work embraces collage, alternative printmaking techniques, book arts, sculpture and social investigations. She has participated in residencies as diverse as the Youlou Arts Foundation in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, WI; Wave Hill, NY; Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, FL; The Elizabeth Foundation’s SHIFT Program, NY; The Center for Book Arts, NY; The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, ME among many other residency programs. Previous awards include grants from The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Queens Council on the Arts, Foundation of Contemporary Art, Puffin Foundation, Joan Mitchell Foundation, and fellowships from Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop and Manhattan Graphic Center. Her award-winning work has been shown worldwide in both group and solo exhibitions and featured in the 2019 Venice Biennale’s Grenada Pavilion. Her practice also includes curatorial projects; Amplify Action: Sustain- ability through the Arts with Pratt Center for Community Development and Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation in Brooklyn, NY; and From Taboo to Icon: Africanist Turnabout at the Ice Box Galley in Philadelphia, PA. Neckles’ has earned an MA from Teachers College, Columbia University, MFA from Queens College and BFA from The College of New Rochelle. Neckles’ currently lives with her partner and son in Queens, New York.