In 2013 Ruiz was offered an artist residency at Alanna Heiss’ Clocktower Gallery, a legendary New York City alternative art space for exhibitions, performances, long-term and site-specific installations, and artist residencies. In 1976, Heiss founded P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center and the Clocktower became an auxiliary space for artist residencies and group shows of emerging artists.

 

Located on the top floor of a 19th Century McKim, Mead & White building in Lower

Manhattan, the Clocktower has presented formative work by some of the most

important artists of our time, including Gordon Matta-Clark, Max Neuhaus, Lynda

Benglis, Dennis Oppenheim, Vito Acconci, Nam June Paik, Charlotte Moorman, Laurie

Anderson, David Tudor, Marina Abramovid, Christian Marclay, ANOHNI and Patti Smith among many others.

 

For two months, Nomi installed herself in the Clocktower’s artist production studio and Nomi began sifting through past

material which she had archived over the last 10 years. She began piecing together an

album containing some of her most personal works, an album titled ‘Borough Gypsy’

which had since become a myth after entering the world of Electronic Dance Music.

 

With 'Borough Gypsy' Ruiz took the listener on a lo-fi cassette tape trip down memory lane using the grit of 90’s Hip Hop

combined with Soul and acoustic folk elements. She relives intimate moments of her life growing up in Brooklyn, New York at a

time when gang culture ran rampant. Topped with her poetic journalism, somber vocal arrangements and catty alter-ego

rhymes, she weaves the tale of an urban gypsy and touches on themes of infidelity, addiction, sex work, transition and solitude while sifting through the psychological effects of her upbringing.

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Alongside the album, she created an immersive installation in one of the gallery spaces, creating a version of her grandmother’s Sunset Park apartment, where visitors were invited to sift through personal diaries, sketchbooks, photo albums and songwriting journals as well as view video portraits, directed, filmed and edited by Ruiz, while listening to album in it’s completion.

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The residency culminated with a live performance by Ruiz at New York's BB Kings Blues Club as part of the Times Square Alliances 'After Hours' series.