There are very few locations left in New York where you can hear yourself think. FDR Four Freedoms State Park on Roosevelt Island is among them– four acres of granite and turf at the southern suggestion of the island, where 120 little-leaf lindens stand in two allées that narrow toward an open room neglecting the East River. Louis Kahn developed it in 1973 as a monolith to Franklin D. Roosevelt and the 4 flexibilities he laid before Congress in 1941– liberty of speech, liberty of praise, flexibility from want, and freedom from fear. It is likewise a monument to silence– the type of silence that is high-end in this city.
On April 29, Finnish artist Hans Rosenström will put voices into that silence. His site-specific installation Out of Silence, curated by Alina Girshovich, delivers a voice-based soundscape that unfolds across a lots speakers hidden in the park’s linden trees. The voices were taped in Estonia, carried across the Atlantic, and released into the canopy of the New york city park.
The allée, the 4 Flexibilities inscription, and the granite perimeter of FDR Four Freedoms State Park.(Courtesy Hans Rosenström)Out of Estonia The voices come from Vox Clamantis, the Estonian vocal ensemble that has actually worked together with composer Arvo Pärt for decades. Pärt, who turned 90 last September, has actually spent half a century composing music that deals with silence not as lack however as product– as necessary to the structure of a piece as any note. For Pärt, there are 2 sort of silence: the silence outside us and the silence of the soul. The inner silence– the one undisturbed by the noise of the world– is the more difficult to reach and the more necessary.