To a Great City: Arvo Part and Snohetta

The collaboration between the artist Arvo Part and Snohetta in lower Manhattan make for a compelling break from the bustle of the city. It argues that even in the city where you are constantly connecting to the small to your neighbor , you can also connect to the large, to the all.

The idea was that you would go to different sites in lower Manhattan and experience something in the city other than bustle. That you would experience a type of quiet in the middle of the bustling city, a type of quiet but also a type of music. Maybe a different type of music to the bustle that you normally hear. Maybe a music that compresses the experience the essence of the bustle of the city to something quieter.

You can wander through grass blown down in a cyclone fence on the battery listening to the performance. You can spend time in a office space abandoned by workers but still in possession of a view.

One of the sites takes you on a ferry ride to governor's island. You have to wander to the center of the island into the magazine.
In the magazine in the battery there are two balloons and music playing. The placement of a balloon within the vaults of the
battery is incongrous and strange. But one can argue that it is the incongrous and strange which can take us to something bigger than ourselves.