Snowden statue on view in Williamsburg through Sunday

If you’re interested, you have until Sunday to see the now-famous Edward Snowden statue live and in person. After the show closes at The Boiler, there’s no telling where the statue might end up next.
The 3D-printed bust is viewable as a part of a collaborative show put together by area galleries called “SEVEN: Anonymity, no longer an option.” Technical.ly Brooklyn spoke to Magda Sawon, the gallerist at Postmasters, one of the seven collaborators in the show, and the one who took part in negotiating the release of the statue installed in Fort Greene Park without the permission of NYC Parks.

The show opened Friday night. Technical.ly Brooklyn was there and the Snowden statue stood in the center of a large room, with the seven other pieces standing around the edge. The bust stood high above the crowd of people, like the night’s master of ceremonies. “This is a very crucial component of the show that ties it together and brings it to another level,” Sawon said during a phone interview Monday.
The Snowden Statue (aka “Prison Ship Martyr’s Monument 2.0,” for the park monument it co-opted) was not a part of the original plan for the show. The seven galleries had originally started to put together the SEVEN show to coincide with Frieze New York, which runs from May 14-17. The idea for the show was to comment on the surveillance state.
For example, Sawon’s contribution to the show was Katarzyna Kozyra’s “Women’s Bathhouse II, 1997/2015.” These are photos taken from within a bathhouse, without their subjects’ permission. It’s controversial work, of course, but it fits right into the narrative the gallerists were making.
Then, the Snowden installation happened, independent of the show. Sawon reached out to Mashable, which had been in touch with the anonymous artists who made the statue, and they got in touch with each other to discuss getting the piece into the SEVEN show.
As the show opened, the artists released the 3D file they made of the statue on Thingiverse, allowing anyone with a 3D printer to make their own reproduction.
“It’s basically a do-it-yourself campaign of spreading the news through technology,” Sawon said. She wore 3D-printed versions of the statue as earrings to the opening night of the show.

The 3d file of The Snowden Bust has been released, We have the first example. Print your own. pic.twitter.com/ssZpZEx93q

— magdasawon (@magdasawon) May 9, 2015

Another group of artists installed a hologram over the spot in Fort Greene park recently, according to Mashable. How long till someone permanently installs an augmented reality piece using the 3D file?