Performative Neighborhood Booths

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Performative Neighborhood Booths (2020) is a public-facing exhibition project in which Lauren Cohen staged temporary booths within her Brooklyn neighborhood as sites for presenting drawings, printed matter, and later ceramic works. Positioned within everyday civic space, the booths functioned as both exhibition and performance, exploring alternative models of visibility, exchange, and audience engagement.

 

The project evolved from Cohen’s earlier initiative, The Other New Yorker (2017), which examined authorship, satire, and political identity through drawing and editorial formats. As the booth project developed, Cohen expanded her material language from printed works to ceramics derived from her drawing practice, emphasizing the relationship between image, object, and public encounter. Cohen uses humor as a structural tool rather than a narrative device, addressing themes of power, gender, ambition, and cultural value through direct, performative exchange.