Soundless Pounding of Accelerating Dreams
Public Art
Soundless Pounding of Accelerating Dreams
Teenagers from Clinton Middle School were asked to identify the place in New York that most reflected who they were and especially who they aspired to become as they grew up; they were then photographed in their chosen environment, from a swimming pool to a church, a movie theater, Washington Square Park, and a photographer’s studio.
When
2006-2007
Where
Community engagement project in Chelsea in collaboration with the Clinton Middle School.
Slater Bradley, Soundless Pounding of Accelerating Dreams , 2007.
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About the artist
For Soundless Pounding of Accelerating Dreams, Slater Bradley worked with photography and local teenagers. He asked each teen to identify the place in New York where they felt most comfortable— sites which most reflected who they were and who they aspired to become. The locations varied from a swimming pool to a church, from a movie theater to Washington Square Park, to a photographer’s studio. Each kid was then photographed in his or her chosen environment—each with a different camera, some in color, some in black and white, in order to convey a particular feeling. To further emphasize individual identities, the final photographs were printed in various sizes and altered by the hand of the artist.
Context
This project was produced as part of Art Creates Communities, one of More Art’s founding projects. Artists showing in the Chelsea galleries were connected via More Art to the local community, encouraging a dialogue, and seeking to create a strong link with the young people who live in the neighborhood and attend the local public schools. The goal of Art Creates Communities, which was in its third edition in 2007, was for everybody to partake of the creative energy galvanizing the Chelsea neighborhood. The strategy was to show the younger generation how to tap its own budding creativity and convey the message that in life they should never be passive spectators but actively grasp challenges and changes.
Artists were invited to collaborate with teenagers from the Clinton Middle School for Writers and Artists (MS260), engaging them in the different media of modern artistic expression, including photography, video, painting, and performance art. The final projects were important works in their own right.
The artists included Slater Bradley, Jay Davis, Nancy Drew, Michael Joo, Michael Rakowitz, Saya Woolfalk. Artist-educator Tim Rollins acted as an advisor, contributing his two decade-long experience working with kids in the Bronx to this project.
Supporters
Slater Bradley
Slater Bradley (b. 1975, San Francisco) is an American artist currently living and working in Berlin, Germany. He works in a variety of mediums searching for meaning and illumination in an otherwise meaningless world.
In 2005, he became the youngest male artist to have a solo exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.
As of 2023, he has had 56 international solo exhibitions since his first in 1999, and his work is held in 33 public institutional collections.
He has been called a clairvoyant for the collective consciousness by museum curator Heidi Zuckerman, and according to The New Yorker, he is something of a cult hero.
Slater Bradley, Soundless Pounding of Accelerating Dreams , 2007.
Slater Bradley, Soundless Pounding of Accelerating Dreams , 2007.
Slater Bradley, Soundless Pounding of Accelerating Dreams , 2007.
