Times Square Arts presents Allison Janae Hamilton's "Wacissa" for April Midnight Moment
Wacissa by Allison Janae Hamilton.
NEW YORK, NY
.-Times Square Arts, the largest public platform for contemporary performance and visual arts, is presenting Wacissa by Allison Janae Hamilton for the month of April as part of the organizations signature Midnight Moment series in partnership with Marianne Boesky Gallery. Midnight Moment is the worlds largest, longest-running digital art exhibition, synchronized on electronic billboards throughout Times Square nightly from 11:57pm to midnight.
In Wacissa (2019), Hamilton transports viewers through a series of rivers in her home region of North Florida. The rivers she navigates are all linked through the areas Slave Canal, so-called as it was built via slave labor in the 1850s to aid the transport of cotton through the Florida panhandle. Filming from her kayak, Hamilton placed the camera into the water, plunging viewers directly into the river. In the resulting video, the audiences senses are upended by the turbulent audiovisuals. Hamilton contrasts the untouched beauty of the underwater landscape with the remnants of the hurricane that devastated the region just a few months prior to filming. Debris can be seen floating in the water and fallen trees from the storm, inviting the viewer to consider the impact of climate change on communities within this landscape. Viewers in Times Square are invited to sync their phones to the underwater sounds of Wacissa via QR codes, which will be displayed throughout Father Duffy Square.