What is Night Watch? A screen on a barge -- 20 feet across, 12 feet high -- loops portraits of a dozen refugees from five continents who were granted political asylum after fleeing tremendous violence and discrimination in their homelands. Shimon Attie's moving artwork engages one of the most urgent conversations of our time -- how we welcome (or turn away) asylum seekers and refugees.
In celebration of the United Nations' (UN) World Refugee Day 2021, BOXBLUR and Immersive Arts Alliance are pleased to announce the west coast debut of Shimon Attie's Night Watch, a floating media arts installation that will travel the San Francisco Bay, will take place September 17 - 19, 2021, along the shorelines of San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley, California. The floating art installation combines contemporary LED-technology with a historic mode of water transport - a barge - to create a sophisticated and layered artistic and sculptural work of art.
Night Watch features twelve, close-up video portraits of refugees who were granted political asylum in the United States. Displayed on a 20 ft-wide, high-resolution LED-screen, the portraits will travel aboard a slow-moving barge to allow for on-shore public viewing. The silently displayed images largely feature members of international LGBTQI communities, as well as unaccompanied minors, who fled tremendous violence and discrimination in their homelands of Columbia, Honduras, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Peru, and Russia.
"Our capacity to ignore the suffering of the 80 million forcibly displaced people in the world depends on their invisibility. Shimon Attie's Night Watch demands that we see their faces, and by seeing, acknowledge both their pain and our responsibility. It is a work that does more than humanize the crisis, it transforms the viewer," comments Ayelet Waldman, Novelist and Screenwriter.
The creation of the Night Watch portraits was made possible through the artist's relationship with the New York-based Moreart.org, who made introductions to refugees and asylees with whom Attie's project aligned. During the process of shooting the portraits, Attie was privileged to hear personal stories, conversations of home and the uncertainty of futures, fear of political reprisals, sensitivities to trauma, homesickness, and individual hopes and dreams. "Night Watch," Attie states, "is for the millions who have been forced to flee their homelands to escape violence and discrimination. For the fortunate few who have been granted political asylum in the United States."
"Many of our families originally arrived in this country seeking refuge from a homeland. Today, in a world dealing with an unprecedented flux of uprooted lives, the Bay Area presentation of Night Watch provokes thoughtful discussion through an exceptionally engaging work of art that compels conversation, and hopefully action, for more compassionate humanitarian treatment at our borders," Clark Suprynowicz, Immersive Arts Alliance.
The 2018 New York City debut of Night Watch during the UN General Assembly Week was received with widespread acclaim, prompting BOXBLUR founder, Catharine Clark to consider the possibility of a California presentation. "Shimon's artwork engages one of the most urgent issues of our time - that of welcoming or closing our doors to asylum seekers," notes Clark. "During its 2021 west coast debut," Clark continues, "Night Watch will activate and animate the San Francisco Bay as both a literal and metaphoric site and landscape for escape, rescue, safe-passage, and the offering of safe-harbor for those most vulnerable."
"No other state has taken in more refugees than California," states Eleni Kounalakis, Lieutenant Governor of California. "As a former Ambassador and the daughter of an immigrant who started out in California as a farmworker, I deeply understand the value of immigrant and asylee communities. The compelling nature of Shimon Attie's Night Watch accentuates a social issue of great importance - that of seeing ourselves in the other. Through a dignified artistic portrayal of refugees and asylees to the United States, Night Watch is a civic art experience that invites us to celebrate our strength in diversity."
Beginning on the eve of September 17, 2021 and on September 18 and September 19, Night Watch will travel on a barge captained by Matt Butler and slowly navigate the cities shorelines from 6:15pm to 8:15pm, corresponding with scheduled live nightly performances on the coastal shorefronts. Night Watch shoreline performances with artists, musicians, and dancers will take place across the Bay Area in San Francisco at Fort Mason, Aquatic Park, Rincon Park, and Warm Water Cove, as well as along the East Bay shorelines at Berkeley Marina and Oakland's Jack London Square.
Image Credit: Shimon Attie, Night Watch (Norris with Liberty), 2018. Originally produced by Moreart.org in New York City.
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In celebration of the United Nations' (UN) World Refugee Day 2021, BOXBLUR and Immersive Arts Alliance are pleased to announce the west coast debut of Shimon Attie's Night Watch, a floating media arts installation that will travel the San Francisco Bay, will take place September 17 - 19, 2021, along the shorelines of San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley, California. The floating art installation combines contemporary LED-technology with a historic mode of water transport - a barge - to create a sophisticated and layered artistic and sculptural work of art.
Night Watch features twelve, close-up video portraits of refugees who were granted political asylum in the United States. Displayed on a 20 ft-wide, high-resolution LED-screen, the portraits will travel aboard a slow-moving barge to allow for on-shore public viewing. The silently displayed images largely feature members of international LGBTQI communities, as well as unaccompanied minors, who fled tremendous violence and discrimination in their homelands of Columbia, Honduras, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Peru, and Russia.
"Our capacity to ignore the suffering of the 80 million forcibly displaced people in the world depends on their invisibility. Shimon Attie's Night Watch demands that we see their faces, and by seeing, acknowledge both their pain and our responsibility. It is a work that does more than humanize the crisis, it transforms the viewer," comments Ayelet Waldman, Novelist and Screenwriter.
The creation of the Night Watch portraits was made possible through the artist's relationship with the New York-based Moreart.org, who made introductions to refugees and asylees with whom Attie's project aligned. During the process of shooting the portraits, Attie was privileged to hear personal stories, conversations of home and the uncertainty of futures, fear of political reprisals, sensitivities to trauma, homesickness, and individual hopes and dreams. "Night Watch," Attie states, "is for the millions who have been forced to flee their homelands to escape violence and discrimination. For the fortunate few who have been granted political asylum in the United States."
"Many of our families originally arrived in this country seeking refuge from a homeland. Today, in a world dealing with an unprecedented flux of uprooted lives, the Bay Area presentation of Night Watch provokes thoughtful discussion through an exceptionally engaging work of art that compels conversation, and hopefully action, for more compassionate humanitarian treatment at our borders," Clark Suprynowicz, Immersive Arts Alliance.
The 2018 New York City debut of Night Watch during the UN General Assembly Week was received with widespread acclaim, prompting BOXBLUR founder, Catharine Clark to consider the possibility of a California presentation. "Shimon's artwork engages one of the most urgent issues of our time - that of welcoming or closing our doors to asylum seekers," notes Clark. "During its 2021 west coast debut," Clark continues, "Night Watch will activate and animate the San Francisco Bay as both a literal and metaphoric site and landscape for escape, rescue, safe-passage, and the offering of safe-harbor for those most vulnerable."
"No other state has taken in more refugees than California," states Eleni Kounalakis, Lieutenant Governor of California. "As a former Ambassador and the daughter of an immigrant who started out in California as a farmworker, I deeply understand the value of immigrant and asylee communities. The compelling nature of Shimon Attie's Night Watch accentuates a social issue of great importance - that of seeing ourselves in the other. Through a dignified artistic portrayal of refugees and asylees to the United States, Night Watch is a civic art experience that invites us to celebrate our strength in diversity."
Beginning on the eve of September 17, 2021 and on September 18 and September 19, Night Watch will travel on a barge captained by Matt Butler and slowly navigate the cities shorelines from 6:15pm to 8:15pm, corresponding with scheduled live nightly performances on the coastal shorefronts. Night Watch shoreline performances with artists, musicians, and dancers will take place across the Bay Area in San Francisco at Fort Mason, Aquatic Park, Rincon Park, and Warm Water Cove, as well as along the East Bay shorelines at Berkeley Marina and Oakland's Jack London Square.
Image Credit: Shimon Attie, Night Watch (Norris with Liberty), 2018. Originally produced by Moreart.org in New York City.
What is Night Watch? A screen on a barge -- 20 feet across, 12 feet high -- loops portraits of a dozen refugees from five continents who were granted political asylum after fleeing tremendous violence and discrimination in their homelands. Shimon Attie's moving artwork engages one of the most urgent conversations of our time -- how we welcome (or turn away) asylum seekers and refugees.
In celebration of the United Nations' (UN) World Refugee Day 2021, BOXBLUR and Immersive Arts Alliance are pleased to announce the west coast debut of Shimon Attie's Night Watch, a floating media arts installation that will travel the San Francisco Bay, will take place September 17 - 19, 2021, along the shorelines of San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley, California. The floating art installation combines contemporary LED-technology with a historic mode of water transport - a barge - to create a sophisticated and layered artistic and sculptural work of art.
Night Watch features twelve, close-up video portraits of refugees who were granted political asylum in the United States. Displayed on a 20 ft-wide, high-resolution LED-screen, the portraits will travel aboard a slow-moving barge to allow for on-shore public viewing. The silently displayed images largely feature members of international LGBTQI communities, as well as unaccompanied minors, who fled tremendous violence and discrimination in their homelands of Columbia, Honduras, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Peru, and Russia.
"Our capacity to ignore the suffering of the 80 million forcibly displaced people in the world depends on their invisibility. Shimon Attie's Night Watch demands that we see their faces, and by seeing, acknowledge both their pain and our responsibility. It is a work that does more than humanize the crisis, it transforms the viewer," comments Ayelet Waldman, Novelist and Screenwriter.
The creation of the Night Watch portraits was made possible through the artist's relationship with the New York-based Moreart.org, who made introductions to refugees and asylees with whom Attie's project aligned. During the process of shooting the portraits, Attie was privileged to hear personal stories, conversations of home and the uncertainty of futures, fear of political reprisals, sensitivities to trauma, homesickness, and individual hopes and dreams. "Night Watch," Attie states, "is for the millions who have been forced to flee their homelands to escape violence and discrimination. For the fortunate few who have been granted political asylum in the United States."
"Many of our families originally arrived in this country seeking refuge from a homeland. Today, in a world dealing with an unprecedented flux of uprooted lives, the Bay Area presentation of Night Watch provokes thoughtful discussion through an exceptionally engaging work of art that compels conversation, and hopefully action, for more compassionate humanitarian treatment at our borders," Clark Suprynowicz, Immersive Arts Alliance.
The 2018 New York City debut of Night Watch during the UN General Assembly Week was received with widespread acclaim, prompting BOXBLUR founder, Catharine Clark to consider the possibility of a California presentation. "Shimon's artwork engages one of the most urgent issues of our time - that of welcoming or closing our doors to asylum seekers," notes Clark. "During its 2021 west coast debut," Clark continues, "Night Watch will activate and animate the San Francisco Bay as both a literal and metaphoric site and landscape for escape, rescue, safe-passage, and the offering of safe-harbor for those most vulnerable."
"No other state has taken in more refugees than California," states Eleni Kounalakis, Lieutenant Governor of California. "As a former Ambassador and the daughter of an immigrant who started out in California as a farmworker, I deeply understand the value of immigrant and asylee communities. The compelling nature of Shimon Attie's Night Watch accentuates a social issue of great importance - that of seeing ourselves in the other. Through a dignified artistic portrayal of refugees and asylees to the United States, Night Watch is a civic art experience that invites us to celebrate our strength in diversity."
Beginning on the eve of September 17, 2021 and on September 18 and September 19, Night Watch will travel on a barge captained by Matt Butler and slowly navigate the cities shorelines from 6:15pm to 8:15pm, corresponding with scheduled live nightly performances on the coastal shorefronts. Night Watch shoreline performances with artists, musicians, and dancers will take place across the Bay Area in San Francisco at Fort Mason, Aquatic Park, Rincon Park, and Warm Water Cove, as well as along the East Bay shorelines at Berkeley Marina and Oakland's Jack London Square.
Image Credit: Shimon Attie, Night Watch (Norris with Liberty), 2018. Originally produced by Moreart.org in New York City.
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In celebration of the United Nations' (UN) World Refugee Day 2021, BOXBLUR and Immersive Arts Alliance are pleased to announce the west coast debut of Shimon Attie's Night Watch, a floating media arts installation that will travel the San Francisco Bay, will take place September 17 - 19, 2021, along the shorelines of San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley, California. The floating art installation combines contemporary LED-technology with a historic mode of water transport - a barge - to create a sophisticated and layered artistic and sculptural work of art.
Night Watch features twelve, close-up video portraits of refugees who were granted political asylum in the United States. Displayed on a 20 ft-wide, high-resolution LED-screen, the portraits will travel aboard a slow-moving barge to allow for on-shore public viewing. The silently displayed images largely feature members of international LGBTQI communities, as well as unaccompanied minors, who fled tremendous violence and discrimination in their homelands of Columbia, Honduras, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Peru, and Russia.
"Our capacity to ignore the suffering of the 80 million forcibly displaced people in the world depends on their invisibility. Shimon Attie's Night Watch demands that we see their faces, and by seeing, acknowledge both their pain and our responsibility. It is a work that does more than humanize the crisis, it transforms the viewer," comments Ayelet Waldman, Novelist and Screenwriter.
The creation of the Night Watch portraits was made possible through the artist's relationship with the New York-based Moreart.org, who made introductions to refugees and asylees with whom Attie's project aligned. During the process of shooting the portraits, Attie was privileged to hear personal stories, conversations of home and the uncertainty of futures, fear of political reprisals, sensitivities to trauma, homesickness, and individual hopes and dreams. "Night Watch," Attie states, "is for the millions who have been forced to flee their homelands to escape violence and discrimination. For the fortunate few who have been granted political asylum in the United States."
"Many of our families originally arrived in this country seeking refuge from a homeland. Today, in a world dealing with an unprecedented flux of uprooted lives, the Bay Area presentation of Night Watch provokes thoughtful discussion through an exceptionally engaging work of art that compels conversation, and hopefully action, for more compassionate humanitarian treatment at our borders," Clark Suprynowicz, Immersive Arts Alliance.
The 2018 New York City debut of Night Watch during the UN General Assembly Week was received with widespread acclaim, prompting BOXBLUR founder, Catharine Clark to consider the possibility of a California presentation. "Shimon's artwork engages one of the most urgent issues of our time - that of welcoming or closing our doors to asylum seekers," notes Clark. "During its 2021 west coast debut," Clark continues, "Night Watch will activate and animate the San Francisco Bay as both a literal and metaphoric site and landscape for escape, rescue, safe-passage, and the offering of safe-harbor for those most vulnerable."
"No other state has taken in more refugees than California," states Eleni Kounalakis, Lieutenant Governor of California. "As a former Ambassador and the daughter of an immigrant who started out in California as a farmworker, I deeply understand the value of immigrant and asylee communities. The compelling nature of Shimon Attie's Night Watch accentuates a social issue of great importance - that of seeing ourselves in the other. Through a dignified artistic portrayal of refugees and asylees to the United States, Night Watch is a civic art experience that invites us to celebrate our strength in diversity."
Beginning on the eve of September 17, 2021 and on September 18 and September 19, Night Watch will travel on a barge captained by Matt Butler and slowly navigate the cities shorelines from 6:15pm to 8:15pm, corresponding with scheduled live nightly performances on the coastal shorefronts. Night Watch shoreline performances with artists, musicians, and dancers will take place across the Bay Area in San Francisco at Fort Mason, Aquatic Park, Rincon Park, and Warm Water Cove, as well as along the East Bay shorelines at Berkeley Marina and Oakland's Jack London Square.
Image Credit: Shimon Attie, Night Watch (Norris with Liberty), 2018. Originally produced by Moreart.org in New York City.
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