Rogue statue finds new home
NORWALK — Weeks after being removed from a public parcel off West Avenue, a statue honoring Norwalk’s indigenous people has found a new home outside the Norwalk Historical Society Museum.
“I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to do with it. I was maybe going to take it to Columbus Circle in Manhattan,” 5iveFingaz, the Norwalk street artist who created and placed the wooden cutout depicting a Native American, said Tuesday after the piece had been relocated.
The statue was kept within the city’s bounds thanks to the efforts of several Norwalk residents who found artistic value in the piece of protest art, including Arts Commision Chair Susan Wallerstein and Historical Society board member David G. Westmoreland.
“After it was removed, the Historical Society reached out to him (5iveFingaz) and offered to place it for a while in the garden at the museum,” Westmoreland said. “I don’t think it’s permanent because the statute is not really permanent — it’s made of compressed wood — but we like the work as a spontaneous response to the discovery of the Indian fort, so we reached out to him and offered to put it in the garden.”
Westmoreland said the Historical Society is working on an interpretive panel with a statement from 5iveFingaz explaining what inspired him to create the sculpture.
On Oct. 3, a passerby walking his dog on West Avenue near the entrance to the Route 7 connector noticed in a plot of grass opposite the city’s Christopher Columbus statue a plywood sculpture of a Native American, with the words “In Honor of the Indigenous People of Norwalk” inscribed on the piece’s boxed wooden base.
“Last night we placed this 11ft statue in the middle of my hometown Norwalk, CT,” 5iveFingaz said in an Instagram post the next day. He said the artwork was meant to honor Norwalk’s indigenous people and to support the preservation of the recently discovered Native American fort.
As part of the Walk Bridge replacement project, the Connecticut Department of Transportation discovered artifacts dating back 5,000 years at the base of the rail bridge. The DOT has said the site will not be preserved once all the artifacts are removed.
The Norwalk Department of Recreation and Parks removed the statue from along West Avenue not because of its statement but because of its placement on public property, according to Mayor Harry W. Rilling.
The parks department brought the statue to its garage off South Smith Street for retrieval.
“It is my understanding a friend of the artist picked it up and they were speaking with David Westmoreland to display it at the Norwalk museum by City Hall,” Ken Hughes, Norwalk’s interim director of recreation and parks, said Monday afternoon.
5iveFingaz said many people reached out to him after the cutout was removed. Some offered money, others had plans to display it on their private property or outside of businesses.
Ultimately, he opted to again display it on public property, this time with city approval.
“I thought that would probably be the best thing to do since it’s part of Norwalk. Hopefully more people can go see it,” 5iveFingaz said.
He’s begun conversations with Westmoreland about possibly creating a long term installation in honor of Norwalk’s Native Americans, whose history hopefully will be unearthed as a result of the Walk Bridge dig.
“Hopefully it generates enough interest to have a real statue commissioned. But everything’s pending on what they find from the site,” 5iveFingaz said.