MARL celebrates Governors Island as a place where ideas around common and collective space could be formed and explored. By virtue of its large scale, MARL is no longer a structure to be admired, but an infrastructure that aims to engage the public. MARL is a collectively owned public space, promoting engagement with the material—from painting, climbing, moving, or photographing—and encouraging actions that in other New York public spaces are highly controlled by private-public partnerships. MARL vindicates the collective potential of action, transformation, and change. Its earth-bag walls are not aimed to be looked at, but rather touched, painted, climbed on, and stood upon.
