1 00:00:07,319 --> 00:00:10,244 ABIGAIL DEVILLE: "If there is no struggle there is no progress." 2 00:00:14,013 --> 00:00:18,770 "Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation," 3 00:00:19,341 --> 00:00:22,970 "are men who want crops without plowing up the ground," 4 00:00:24,802 --> 00:00:27,850 "they want rain without thunder and lightning." 5 00:00:30,838 --> 00:00:34,810 "They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters." 6 00:00:38,384 --> 00:00:41,838 Frederick Douglass, August 4th, 1857. 7 00:00:41,838 --> 00:00:45,588 [Abigail DeVille: "Light of Freedom"] 8 00:00:55,543 --> 00:00:58,309 [Madison Square Park] 9 00:01:00,922 --> 00:01:04,705 Initially, I found the Frederick Douglass quote, 10 00:01:04,705 --> 00:01:09,280 and that was just me thinking about a way to 11 00:01:09,280 --> 00:01:12,248 quickly contextualize what happened this summer. 12 00:01:14,020 --> 00:01:16,780 I think it was the images that he painted. 13 00:01:17,260 --> 00:01:20,399 I just kept thinking about the rolling waves, 14 00:01:21,060 --> 00:01:24,320 and just the waves of people that hooked each other, arm in arm, 15 00:01:24,320 --> 00:01:28,044 and protested in the face of, potentially, death, 16 00:01:28,765 --> 00:01:30,750 through this pandemic, 17 00:01:30,750 --> 00:01:33,870 to fight for whatever this nation actually pretends 18 00:01:33,870 --> 00:01:36,958 that it was founded or based on. 19 00:01:59,620 --> 00:02:04,409 It's a commemoration of the Black Lives Matter protests and movement, 20 00:02:04,409 --> 00:02:09,782 and the Black lives here in this continent for 400 years. 21 00:02:12,830 --> 00:02:14,780 As I was placing the arms, 22 00:02:14,780 --> 00:02:19,139 thinking about the kinds of ways in which everything could have been so different, 23 00:02:19,139 --> 00:02:22,949 that there have been opportunities and moments that have been missed, 24 00:02:22,949 --> 00:02:27,814 cyclically in New York history and in the nation's history as a whole: 25 00:02:28,955 --> 00:02:30,350 moments for progress 26 00:02:30,350 --> 00:02:35,933 or moments that potentially the playing field was going to be evened out. 27 00:02:41,218 --> 00:02:43,960 I had a really awesome fourth grade teacher, 28 00:02:43,960 --> 00:02:45,579 her name was Mrs. Hammond. 29 00:02:45,579 --> 00:02:47,169 She was spectacular. 30 00:02:47,169 --> 00:02:49,660 She really made history come alive for us. 31 00:02:49,660 --> 00:02:54,290 She played for us Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech on vinyl, 32 00:02:54,290 --> 00:02:57,590 and you could hear a pin drop in that classroom. 33 00:02:57,590 --> 00:03:02,060 I just remember holding my best friend's hand underneath the table the entire time 34 00:03:02,060 --> 00:03:04,740 just being so moved by his words 35 00:03:04,740 --> 00:03:06,519 and the power of his words. 36 00:03:07,420 --> 00:03:10,050 She planted a seed, for sure, 37 00:03:11,597 --> 00:03:16,108 of thinking about how we're all participants within history. 38 00:03:18,195 --> 00:03:22,010 Seeing images of the Statue of Liberty's hand with torch in the park, 39 00:03:22,010 --> 00:03:24,010 I was just like, "Okay, now I can stop looking." 40 00:03:24,010 --> 00:03:25,190 "This is it." 41 00:03:25,190 --> 00:03:27,420 "It's everything that I'm thinking about--" 42 00:03:27,420 --> 00:03:29,409 "everything I want to talk about." 43 00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:33,699 The torch and the hand of the Statue of Liberty 44 00:03:33,699 --> 00:03:39,480 sat in this park for six years from 1876 to 1882 45 00:03:39,480 --> 00:03:42,919 while they were trying to fundraise for the pedestal 46 00:03:42,919 --> 00:03:44,897 for the Statue of Liberty. 47 00:03:50,290 --> 00:03:52,440 I love scaffolding. 48 00:03:52,440 --> 00:03:56,254 It's ubiquitous here in New York City. 49 00:03:56,810 --> 00:03:59,757 Things have always been constructed and torn down. 50 00:03:59,757 --> 00:04:04,820 This idea of freedom is under continual construction-- 51 00:04:04,820 --> 00:04:06,880 and reconstruction-- 52 00:04:06,880 --> 00:04:09,000 from generation to generation. 53 00:04:13,110 --> 00:04:16,340 Thinking about bells being another symbol of liberty, 54 00:04:16,340 --> 00:04:19,510 but then encaged within this torch, 55 00:04:19,510 --> 00:04:22,088 that it actually can't really make a sound. 56 00:04:23,830 --> 00:04:26,870 That also is the fuel of the torch, 57 00:04:26,870 --> 00:04:30,030 and also blue fire being the hottest fire that there is. 58 00:04:39,180 --> 00:04:43,380 Society has tried to separate us or define us by our bodies 59 00:04:43,380 --> 00:04:44,600 or where we live-- 60 00:04:44,600 --> 00:04:49,413 or socioeconomic class, education, everything. 61 00:04:53,590 --> 00:04:56,790 And then how collectively we can link our arms together 62 00:04:56,790 --> 00:05:00,015 and assert something else. 63 00:05:08,470 --> 00:05:11,470 I think making that work, 64 00:05:11,470 --> 00:05:13,940 it was, in a way, like a prayer or a hope 65 00:05:13,940 --> 00:05:16,400 for something for the future-- 66 00:05:16,400 --> 00:05:20,109 to bring names from the past into the present. 67 00:05:20,470 --> 00:05:23,330 And then to continue the descension-- 68 00:05:23,330 --> 00:05:27,571 to pass the baton to honor the collective.