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To commemorate Wednesday’s debut of Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale, New Yorkers can stroll through an interactive art installation and grab a free copy of the feminist book.
The exhibit features a 40-foot-by-12-foot mural that opened the morning of April 26 on New York City’s High Line – Chelsea Market Passage. It will remain open to the public through Sunday, April 30, from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Designed by graphic artists Paula Scher and Abbott Miller, the multimedia installation contains 4,000 complimentary paperback copies of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel on which the series is based. As passersby grab the book, the art piece is deconstructed to reveal powerful messages of female empowerment and anti-authoritarian resistance, including “the message “Nolite te Bastardes Carborundorum” (“Don’t Let the Bastards Grind You Down”)—the central battle cry of the classic story.
In an artist statement, Scher and Miller explain their work:
“The Handmaid’s Tale provides a chilling reminder of how easily the darkest currents of repression can re-surface. The installation we designed shows how these dark messages are often accompanied by bombastic language and imagery: spectacle becomes a form of persuasion. Cracks in the floorboards reveal empowering texts, glimpses of resistance for an uncertain age.”
The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu stars Elisabeth Moss, Joseph Fiennes, Yvonne Strahovski, Samira Wiley, Alexis Bledel, Ann Dowd, Madeline Brewer, Max Minghella and O-T Fagbenle.
It tells the story of life in the dystopia of Gilead, a totalitarian society in what was formerly the United States. Facing environmental disasters and a plunging birthrate, Gilead is ruled by a twisted fundamentalism in its militarized ‘return to traditional values’.
As one of the few remaining fertile women, Offred (Moss) is a handmaid in the commander’s household, one of the caste of women forced into sexual servitude as a last desperate attempt to repopulate the world. She fights for survival while seeking the daughter that was taken from her.
[Photos by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Hulu]
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