Yoko Ono hung wishes from trees. Jeanne-Claude and Christo coated entire coastlines. But their work had one thing in common: it made us think about what we should cherish – and what we are losing
The Brooklyn-based conceptual artist Ellen Harvey started her
Disappointed Tourist project in 2019, well before the pandemic. She was considering the political situation and the notion of nostalgia, and sensed that people were feeling traumatised. Her own neighbourhood was also becoming gentrified. “It was about what they were missing,” Harvey said in a recent interview. She decided to try to unpack the idea of what “the good old days” mean for people as a way of expanding empathy. “Maybe nostalgia can be a force for good,” she says.
Harvey decided to paint what no longer exists and began by soliciting people’s ideas of places they wish they could have visited. It started by word of mouth, via friends in her circle, and continues to grow. She has now completed more than 200 sites in black-and-white images, labelled like oversized postcards. Another 40 are in progress. The completed paintings can be seen on the project s website, which also contains an online form fo