Lifeline: filo della vita -- What is Lifeline?

The LIFELINE project evolved from one of Amore's earlier exhibits, "Opening Windows in Time," which opened at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in September 1998. Creating that exhibit inspired her to embrace the larger immigration experience. The inspiration for "Opening Windows in Time" came about when Amore visited the Tenement Museum for the first time and workers were removing the arched tin that had shuttered the windows of the third floor since 1935. As she put it, "They seemed like the 'eyelids' of the tenement, guarding the secrets within." She asked if she could recycle them into art, and they became the backdrops for each triptych.

To order your own triptych, go to "Memory Boxes'!

Baldizzi Triptych

Most of the photos and oral histories that Amore uses in these sculptures are from the archives of the Museum. Before becoming a museum, this tenement was once home to many families, among them, the Gumpertz, Rogarshevsky, Confino and Baldizzi families.

This exhibit is dedicated to Concetta De Iorio, Amore's maternal grandmother. It is because of her collections of objects, from the everyday to the sacred, that this work exists. Many are included in these pieces.

The triptychs and panels are a tribute to "ordinary " lives lived with perseverance, faith and courage. Amore views each one as one strand in the ever-expanding net of human history. There are often as many as six generations represented in each piece. The human story is revealed in all its strength and frailty. The exhibit as a celebration of the ties which bind us all together.

An Italian American Odyssey 1901-2001

Opening Windows in Time:

Baldizzi Triptych