Shape of Play public art installation, designed by NYC artist Sari Carel, open on Boston's Waterfront Park
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Tuesday, October 15, 2024


Shape of Play public art installation, designed by NYC artist Sari Carel, open on Boston's Waterfront Park
Shape of Play rendering by BRM Production Management.



BOSTON, MASS.- The Shape of Play, a new temporary public art installation by artist Sari Carel, commissioned by the Jewish Arts Collaborative and curated and produced by Now + There, debuted September 4 in the North End’s Waterfront Park, posing a provocative question: Do you feel free to play? This engaging multi-sensory work, up through October 31, invites us to reflect on the connections between play and the universal search for freedom through sight and sound. The work invites people from across the Boston area to come, play, question, and explore the meaning of freedom in this time when personal and communal freedoms are being tested.

The Shape of Play fuses an ambient, multi-channel soundscape — created by Carel using structures and play equipment at Boston-area playgrounds as her instruments — with a colorful, architectural sculpture evocative of children’s wooden building blocks. The multi-channel soundscape emitted by the sculpture is at points whimsical, energetic, buoyant, and ethereal. It offers moments of respite and delight, creates a communal experience of shared listening, reminds us that the ability to play and the sense of freedom are closely linked.

Originally conceived in the pre-pandemic world and planned for display last Spring during Passover, the project has taken on new importance in a city where play spaces were padlocked this Spring, and calls us to break down the barriers to freedom our society has built.




“When we first commissioned Sari, we were excited about her vision to talk about freedom through play, something so innate in the Jewish values,” says JArts Executive Director Laura Mandel. “We had hoped to display the work during Passover because it is the time in the Jewish calendar where we celebrate and reflect on the meaning of freedom—and not just for the Jewish people, but for all. Now, as we struggle with unprecedented levels of cultural and social change across our country and community, we are especially proud that we can bring this project to life this Fall.”

Carel’s work seeks to uncover the underlying connections between our senses, play and freedom. “A whole new world opens up as we train our ears on the sounds all around us,” says Carel. “Sound, like freedom, is invisible, to be felt more than seen. The feeling of freedom is essential to play, and this project articulates that connection in a sensorial experience of both sound and freedom. My idea for this project came from listening to playgrounds being played as instruments as they were used for actual play."

Playgrounds, widely considered to be among our most egalitarian of public spaces, are places open to people of all ages, cultures, races, and social groups. But as Now + There Executive Director Kate Gilbert put it, “As with many of our public spaces, the ability to play, speak, and move freely in our playgrounds and parks can be inhibited by the very social forces and institutions that have shaped our neighborhoods—the forces of poverty, race, politics and social inequity. These are also the systems we create public art within and interrogate.”

Based in Brooklyn, New York, much of multi-media artist Sari Carel's work focuses on translation from one modality to another. Her projects consider interspecies communication, relationships between people and place, and how the senses inform our perception. Also an environmental activist, Carel is a sharp observer of ecosystems, be they natural or human. The Shape of Play is inspired by her many hours spent at playgrounds, watching her children, and considering the sounds that these abstract structures make.

Carel’s work has been exhibited and screened internationally in venues such as Artists Space, Dumbo Arts Festival, Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, and Gavin Brown’s Enterprise in New York; LAX Art and Young Projects in Los Angeles; TA University Gallery in Tel Aviv, and Haifa Museum of Art in Israel and Locust Projects in Miami. She has been awarded numerous fellowships and residencies, including AIR at the Stundars Museum, Finland; AIR Vienna; the Socrates Sculpture Park Artist Fellowship and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Residency on Governors Island, New York; and the Bundanon Residency, in Australia. Recent exhibitions include The Coyote After-School Program at Melanie Flood Projects in Portland, OR, Out Of Thin Air, a public sound installation with community-driven workshops at City Hall Park in Manhattan commissioned by More Art, and The A.I.R Gallery Biennial in Brooklyn.










Today's News

September 10, 2020

Guggenheim Museum to welcome back visitors beginning on October 3

Sotheby's unveils highlights from Contemporary Curated

Sperone Westwater reopens with exhibition of sculptures by Bruce Nauman

Sotheby's to offer Asian and Western contemporary art from the collection of Natalie Chan Chu and Lawrence Chu

Annkya Kultys Gallery is the first commercial art gallery to represent a humanoid robot artist

Patricia Marroquin Norby named Associate Curator of Native American Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Palmer Museum of Art delays reopening, announces programs and projects for fall

Basquiat and Mitchell to highlight 'A New York State of Mind'

Exhibition explores the art of photography and architecture in Soviet Russia: 1920s-1930s

Ron Gorchov, painter who challenged viewers' perceptions, dies at 90

Movie mogul/Paramount Pictures Studio chief auction heads to Julien's Auctions

Bonhams to offer the FA Cup trophy awarded from 1896 to 1910

Macron urged to move Rimbaud, Verlaine to Pantheon

Shape of Play public art installation, designed by NYC artist Sari Carel, open on Boston's Waterfront Park

Just published! Nowhere to go but Everywhere by Dotan Saguy

Big turnout for Milestone's auction of Maiher railroadiana & petroliana collection

More than 90 works from 42 galleries will be presented in an unprecedented online auction

Turner Auctions + Appraisals to offer The Joel Harris Collection of Oziana & Children's Books

Shannon's fall auction features 230 quality artworks

Alexander Berggruen opens an exhibition of works by Minku Kim

An artist continues her applause for essential workers

An operatic innovator takes on Detroit

Bill Wyman's bass rig & Harry Styles' guitar are top sellers at Julien's Auctions charity sale

How Covid-19 May Impact the Entertainment Industry in the Long-term

Top 5 Tips For Staying Creative During a Lockdown




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Attorneys
Truck Accident Attorneys
Accident Attorneys
Holistic Dentist
Abogado de accidentes

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site Parroquia Natividad del Señor
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful