The Dumbo Improvement District has installed the second volume of the Dumbo Projection Project — a community video art exhibition projected onto both Pearl Street and Adams Street sides of the Manhattan Bridge and along the BQE in Susan Smith McKinney Steward Park.
The larger-than-life exhibit is on display Thursdays and Sundays through March 18, from dusk until 10 p.m. The projected exhibition, entitled “Rhythms of the City,” aims to show viewers what it’s like to live in a city like New York while exploring topics and experiences well-appreciated by natives and visitors alike.
The exhibition displays four video artworks by five artists — Kyoung eun Kang, Nicholas Fraser, Josh Klatt and Eliana Perez and Tala Schlossberg — whose work explores the distinct character and beauty of the city.
“I’ve been filming the streets and storefronts of New York City for 15 years,” artist Fraser said about his work, titled “Fronts Project.”
Fraser’s piece features 342 different scenes filmed across 250 hours of street footage from between 2010 and now.
“Each is framed to capture the day-to-day activities of city street life. I was very excited when offered the opportunity to create a whole new body of four-channel, super-wide videos from my nearly 5,000 individual videos. These super-sized works are able to take advantage of the large scale of many of Dumbo’s landmark features,” the artist said. “And the best part is that projecting these videos back into the very spaces depicted offers both multiple layers of rich imagery and messages, both private and public, profound and mundane, for the audience on the street.”
The project’s third volume launches March 21 and is expected to run April 12, 18, 19 and 20. It will feature a collection of four works that combine animation, real life as well as hand drawings which take the viewer on all manners of surreal journeys.
Artists Nancy Sepe, aricoco and Eirini Linardaki are featured in the project’s third volume. Each of the showcase’s artists were selected from over 200 submissions.
The Dumbo Projection Project is the largest scale projection project or exhibition in Brooklyn to date and, following the success of the project’s debut, will continue annually and be held each winter.
“Public art helps make our city’s iconic infrastructure even more beautiful and vibrant, and New York’s public realm even more welcoming,” said NYC Department of Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez in a statement. “I applaud the Dumbo Improvement District for their partnership in bringing world class art to millions of New Yorkers and visitors.”
The exhibition highlights not just the beauty of New York City, but also the significant contributions that Dumbo has made within the artistic community.
“We are so delighted to give Brooklyn a new epic scale home for projection art,” said Alexandria Sica, president of the Dumbo Improvement District. “Where else can you see trucks, taxis and subways passing by atop world class video art? The scale is exciting and the community will be delighted with the remarkable breadth of work to brighten the dark days of winter.”
To learn more about the Dumbo Projection Project, visit dumbo.nyc/projections.
