WEBVTT 00:00:07.319 --> 00:00:10.244 ABIGAIL DEVILLE: "If there is no struggle there is no progress." 00:00:14.013 --> 00:00:18.770 "Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation," 00:00:19.341 --> 00:00:22.970 "are men who want crops without plowing up the ground," 00:00:24.802 --> 00:00:27.850 "they want rain without thunder and lightning." 00:00:30.838 --> 00:00:34.810 "They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters." 00:00:38.384 --> 00:00:41.838 Frederick Douglass, August 4th, 1857. 00:00:41.838 --> 00:00:45.588 [Abigail DeVille: "Light of Freedom"] 00:00:55.543 --> 00:00:58.309 [Madison Square Park] 00:01:00.922 --> 00:01:04.705 Initially, I found the Frederick Douglass quote, 00:01:04.705 --> 00:01:09.280 and that was just me thinking about a way to 00:01:09.280 --> 00:01:12.248 quickly contextualize what happened this summer. 00:01:14.020 --> 00:01:16.780 I think it was the images that he painted. 00:01:17.260 --> 00:01:20.399 I just kept thinking about the rolling waves, 00:01:21.060 --> 00:01:24.320 and just the waves of people that hooked each other, arm in arm, 00:01:24.320 --> 00:01:28.044 and protested in the face of, potentially, death, 00:01:28.765 --> 00:01:30.750 through this pandemic, 00:01:30.750 --> 00:01:33.870 to fight for whatever this nation actually pretends 00:01:33.870 --> 00:01:36.958 that it was founded or based on. 00:01:59.620 --> 00:02:04.409 It's a commemoration of the Black Lives Matter protests and movement, 00:02:04.409 --> 00:02:09.782 and the Black lives here in this continent for 400 years. 00:02:12.830 --> 00:02:14.780 As I was placing the arms, 00:02:14.780 --> 00:02:19.139 thinking about the kinds of ways in which everything could have been so different, 00:02:19.139 --> 00:02:22.949 that there have been opportunities and moments that have been missed, 00:02:22.949 --> 00:02:27.814 cyclically in New York history and in the nation's history as a whole: 00:02:28.955 --> 00:02:30.350 moments for progress 00:02:30.350 --> 00:02:35.933 or moments that potentially the playing field was going to be evened out. 00:02:41.218 --> 00:02:43.960 I had a really awesome fourth grade teacher, 00:02:43.960 --> 00:02:45.579 her name was Mrs. Hammond. 00:02:45.579 --> 00:02:47.169 She was spectacular. 00:02:47.169 --> 00:02:49.660 She really made history come alive for us. 00:02:49.660 --> 00:02:54.290 She played for us Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech on vinyl, 00:02:54.290 --> 00:02:57.590 and you could hear a pin drop in that classroom. 00:02:57.590 --> 00:03:02.060 I just remember holding my best friend's hand underneath the table the entire time 00:03:02.060 --> 00:03:04.740 just being so moved by his words 00:03:04.740 --> 00:03:06.519 and the power of his words. 00:03:07.420 --> 00:03:10.050 She planted a seed, for sure, 00:03:11.597 --> 00:03:16.108 of thinking about how we're all participants within history. 00:03:18.195 --> 00:03:22.010 Seeing images of the Statue of Liberty's hand with torch in the park, 00:03:22.010 --> 00:03:24.010 I was just like, "Okay, now I can stop looking." 00:03:24.010 --> 00:03:25.190 "This is it." 00:03:25.190 --> 00:03:27.420 "It's everything that I'm thinking about--" 00:03:27.420 --> 00:03:29.409 "everything I want to talk about." 00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:33.699 The torch and the hand of the Statue of Liberty 00:03:33.699 --> 00:03:39.480 sat in this park for six years from 1876 to 1882 00:03:39.480 --> 00:03:42.919 while they were trying to fundraise for the pedestal 00:03:42.919 --> 00:03:44.897 for the Statue of Liberty. 00:03:50.290 --> 00:03:52.440 I love scaffolding. 00:03:52.440 --> 00:03:56.254 It's ubiquitous here in New York City. 00:03:56.810 --> 00:03:59.757 Things have always been constructed and torn down. 00:03:59.757 --> 00:04:04.820 This idea of freedom is under continual construction-- 00:04:04.820 --> 00:04:06.880 and reconstruction-- 00:04:06.880 --> 00:04:09.000 from generation to generation. 00:04:13.110 --> 00:04:16.340 Thinking about bells being another symbol of liberty, 00:04:16.340 --> 00:04:19.510 but then encaged within this torch, 00:04:19.510 --> 00:04:22.088 that it actually can't really make a sound. 00:04:23.830 --> 00:04:26.870 That also is the fuel of the torch, 00:04:26.870 --> 00:04:30.030 and also blue fire being the hottest fire that there is. 00:04:39.180 --> 00:04:43.380 Society has tried to separate us or define us by our bodies 00:04:43.380 --> 00:04:44.600 or where we live-- 00:04:44.600 --> 00:04:49.413 or socioeconomic class, education, everything. 00:04:53.590 --> 00:04:56.790 And then how collectively we can link our arms together 00:04:56.790 --> 00:05:00.015 and assert something else. 00:05:08.470 --> 00:05:11.470 I think making that work, 00:05:11.470 --> 00:05:13.940 it was, in a way, like a prayer or a hope 00:05:13.940 --> 00:05:16.400 for something for the future-- 00:05:16.400 --> 00:05:20.109 to bring names from the past into the present. 00:05:20.470 --> 00:05:23.330 And then to continue the descension-- 00:05:23.330 --> 00:05:27.571 to pass the baton to honor the collective.