In this performance action, the artist carries a large house on their back across the length of 14th Street. Through this act of endurance, complex symbols become conflated with ideas of accumulated individual burden and resolute and relentless progress.

Curated by Jessica Elaine Blinkhorn, Art in Odd Places 2022: STORY features visual and performance artists on 14th Street from Avenue C to the Hudson River.

Art in Odd Places 2022: STORY charges participating local, national, and international artists with sharing their wide-ranging personal stories publicly. Passersby engaging directly or choosing to engage with the projects from a distance will witness the myriad of statements in this year’s festival. Stories that confront political and social stigmas, report on the environment, speak for the silent, unheard, and the underrepresented are highlighted in this year’s festival. Certain testimonies offer diverse perspectives on what it means to be in a violent situation, or what it’s like to be from a different culture or express the experience of daily life with different abilities. Others are questioning or redefining identity, showing transparency regarding emotional well-being struggling with mental health, and sharing cultural, social, religious, and spiritual differences. We all believe that our stories are vastly different – but I sense they are universal.

—Jessica Elaine Blinkhorn, Curator