Es Devlin's kinetic sculpture is formed of 700 glowing cords expressing the 700 languages currently spoken in New York City, which are tensioned between a series of structural arcs, enveloping visitors within a revolving illuminated network as it rotates north, south, east and west through a multilingual soundscape which interweaves languages drawn from all over the city: from Algerian Arabic, Alsation, Azeri and Ashanti to Zapotec, Zarma and Zulu. As the sculpture revolves, it acts as a lens between the viewer and their surroundings. The viewer's perspective is spliced and framed by the shifting strands of the sculpture as it turns, evoking the way our perspectives are enriched and shaped by experiencing the linguistic structures and identities of others, amidst a soundscape composed by the contemporary composers, Polyphonia, in which the powerful text from EM Forster's 1910 novel Howards End has been translated into multiple overlaid languages: "Only connect, and live in fragments no longer." Performances by multiligual singing groups will include Ukrainian Village Voices, Our Chorus NYC, and the Harlem Japanese Gospel Choir
New York City, NY; NYC