Sound Walk (2007)

“Part art project, part history lesson and part contemporary social criticism.”
(The Brooklyn Paper)

Anyplace, Brooklyn is an audio walk that mixed documentary sounds, interviews and guided observation to explore critical issues raised by New York City’s Downtown Brooklyn Development Plan including: public space, democracy, eminent domain, freedom of expression and privatization.  Walkers explored two very distinct areas of downtown Brooklyn: the small business area on and around Fulton Mall, and the privately-owned-public-space called Metro Tech Commons.  While experiencing these highly contrasted versions of public life in NYC, participants learned that the city passed the Downtown Brooklyn Development Plan to encourage more towering office and residential construction in the low-rise Fulton Mall area. Through narration and interviews with area residents, activists and shoppers, this audio walk asked participants to carefully observe public life in Downtown Brooklyn and to imagine the kind of public space and city they would like to see.

Anyplace, Brooklyn premiered at Conflux, the annual New York Festival for Contemporary Psychogeography, in September 2007. Participants described the experience as “eye-opening,” “multi-layered,” “complex,” “nuanced,” and “informative and thoughtful.”