Artist Rob Andrews' Union Square Cleaning project. Photo Courtesy of Ryan McManus and Ed Woodham.

Over the next two weeks, New Yorkers will notice quite a few unusual things happening around the city: passersby cleansing the feet of black clothed figures; young, smiling mothers devouring life-sized, edible babies; a woman wrapping herself burrito-style in brightly colored cloth; dirty sidewalks strewn with carefully placed rose petals; and much more.

Welcome to Art in Odd Places 2011: RITUAL, a ten day festival during which over 60 artists will display the spiritual, social, political and everyday significance of rituals along 14th Street.

Ed Woodham, creator and founder of Art in Odd Places (AiOP), has been planning the annual festival in New York since 2005. Every October, AiOP adopts a single word that encompasses a variety of meanings to be explored by artists. This year the word is “ritual.”

“My hope is that pedestrians have an ‘aha’ moment where they rethink their patterns of travel and behavior even for a brief second—instigated by one of the ‘rituals’ encountered along the street,” Woodham commented in an email.

Lucia Warck Meister, this year’s festival producer, was looking forward to seeing the public’s reaction to the festival over opening weekend.

“I’m very excited to see that all these interpretations of ritual are presented in the artists’ works,” Meister said, “and that the casual passersby will get engaged or connect with them because they respond to our inner selves.”

Friday was the opening reception of the festival at Theaterlab. Mustachioed artist LuLu LoLo greeted visitors at the entrance in a top hat and tails. Reggae music of Turkish performer Egemen Sanli floated down the stairs of the small, brick building.

As the sun set, Australian artist Bindi Cole began tossing feathers from the roof of the building as part of her The Shelter Under the Shadow of His Wings project. Down below, Sherry Aliberti’s brightly colored Cocoons appeared. Covered from head to toe in blob-like, stretchy material, Aliberti’s performers began their contorted dance down 14th Street to gather at Hudson River Park by sunset.

By 7 p.m., AiOP artists performing their rituals in the street had drawn quite a crowd of curious visitors.

“ ‘Rituals’ is a good theme because they generally involve group activities and community, and that aligns really well with the purpose of the festival,” Devon Walsh, the festival’s administrative assistant, said.

The purpose of the festival encompasses more than simply displaying unusual art. Woodham began these festivals to react to the disconnect he saw developing between individuals and their awareness of public space.

According to Woodham, the most pertinent mission of AiOP is to reclaim “public space and civil liberties” by “expressing and communicating in public spaces without permits.”

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