Draft:Fannie Mae Dees Park

In 1978, Fannie Mae Dees was posthumously honored by the city of Nashville, Tennessee with a park established in her name. A local home-owner and activist, Dees had "devoted the last thirteen years of her life [to] civilly and relentlessly opposing the destruction of her neighborhood for Vanderbilt University's expansion" through their urban renewal project.

The park is known primarily for the "Sea Serpent" at its center, which was created by artist Pedro Siilva "in the early 1980s with the help of the community," and also serves as a play structure for the children who frequent the park. The sculpture has stood strong since its creation, thanks in large part to the restoration efforts undertaken from 2016 to 2018 to ensure that it would remain safe and sturdy for all to enjoy. "Sea Serpent" has also served as the inspiration for the park's colloquial moniker, "Dragon Park."

Fannie Mae Dees
Fannie Mae Dees dropped everything to try to save her home from the urban renewal project enabling the expansion of Vanderbilt University in the 1960s and 1970s, eventually going so far as to quit her job to dedicate all of her time to the cause. She is remembered as a "singularly dedicated and brave person...[as well as] an articulate spokesman and forthright opponent of Vanderbilt's cold-hearted and shameful manner of expanding." Although she "died just before the park that would bear her name was built, and her activism did not save her home from the wrecking ball," that loss is not the legacy she left behind. Her legacy is instead the park named for her in recognition of her activism, which was ironically established as part of the urban renewal project she opposed. It is a fitting tribute to her given that it provides a source of unity and connection for her community just as she once did.

Importance
"Sea Serpent," along with the "Rolling Bench" sculpture series also done by Pedro Silva near Grant's Tomb in New York City, represent early examples of art being used to unite a community as well as to connect them to their collective history and stories. In the case of "Sea Serpent," the public art project was intended to heal divides in the neighborhood caused by the urban renewal opposed by Fannie Mae Dees.

As recent work on so-called "community art" has shown, it "helps us realize how our identities are interconnected to place. It offers valuable insight into the ways communities can develop or are affected by development," and it did just that for the Hillsboro neighborhood of Nashville in which it was created. The sculpture was created with mosaic tiles decorated by over a thousand volunteers from the area. By bringing them into the project and inspiring them to leave their own marks on the piece, Silva also gave them a reason to take pride in both the sculpture and their community. This pride also ensured that the locals would protect and care for the sculpture, which became clear from 2016 to 2018, when the community realized that the dragon was showing its age and subsequently undertook a massive project to restore the sculpture. Although the "sculpture is owned by Metro Parks and Recreation,...[it] competes with all of the other maintenance needs in the city's park system for limited funds," so when the need for restoration was discovered, the neighborhood association of the surrounding area, Hillsboro-West End Neighbors, took it upon themselves to create a committee dedicated getting the work done. After many fundraising efforts and two years of work, "Sea Serpent" reopened to the public in all its glory in 2018.

Artist
Pedro Silva was a Chilean-born artist located in New York City who was commissioned for "Sea Serpent" due to his experience with a similar project in New York, a series of benches which display similar characteristics to the twisting, flowing features and mosaic tile detailing of the "Sea Serpent" featured in Fannie Mae Dees Park. His work seems to be influenced by that of the famed Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí. After his early life and education in Chile, Silva "came to the U.S. to study art at Columbia University and the Art Students League in 1959 on a Pan American scholarship." Soon after, he started working in public art, where he developed his signature method of encouraging communities to take part in sculptures by utilizing them to create mosaic tile designs which he would then place on the surface of a piece. This method, which "allows hundreds of untrained people to participate directly in a mosaic art project...[and] also overcomes class and economic barriers to instill a strong sense of community and shared values" was a key reason why he was chosen for the project in Nashville given the need to heal some of the divides caused by urban renewal in the area. Silva is honored for his work in an egg-shaped design on the front of one head of the sculpture which credits both him and the community volunteers who assisted him.

Sculpture
Silva was initially commissioned to "design and construct a play structure in Fannie Mae Dees Park" that could also "help unify unhappy neighbors," but was otherwise given creative license. He produced "Sea Serpent" as a result, which "is a ceramic tile sculpture set in reinforced concrete designed and constructed...[as] a site-specific installation that depicts a mother "dragon" and baby dragon...emerging from the ground (representing the sea)." The sculpture serves as an "undulating focal point" of the landscape, and is covered in colorful mosaic tiles which create a variety of figures across the entirety of the sculpture. The tiles used in the mosaic were gathered from the scraps of local tile companies by one of the organizers of the project, and were decorated by over 1,000 volunteers from the area. Depicting everything from a sailboat to Yoda to the Statue of Liberty, these mosaic figures cover the sculpture in "a near-perfect artistic metaphor for community," and one which effectively accomplished its intended goal of reconnecting the people in the area.