Soft-Firm's Public Art Installation DRIVE-THRU Opens Today

Downtown Brooklyn Partnership and Van Alen Institute, in partnership with Two Trees Management, today announced its annual public art installation, Soft-Firm's Drive-Thru at the Plaza at 300 Ashland. A reconfigurable outdoor theater, Drive-Thru will feature a series of videos and performances by Brooklyn artists, filmmakers, and cultural organizations. Drive-Thru will be on view from February 18 to April 14 of 2022.

Inspired by the classic drive-in movie experience, Soft-Firm's Drive-Thru reimagines how shared public spaces can be activated during the winter months to connect communities. By incorporating light through rear projection, Drive-Thru serves as a cinema for pedestrians and is visible from the highly utilized intersection of Flatbush and Lafayette Avenues. The design, fabricated by Datum Zed echoes surrounding urban infrastructure, such as the rotating Brooklyn Academy of Music sign, billboards, and construction scaffolding - incorporating landmarks signature to the Downtown Brooklyn neighborhood.

Drive-Thru will showcase film and video by eight Brooklyn-based artists and filmmakers that highlight Brooklyn communities, explore themes of urban life, and connect to Black History Month and Women's History Month. Live performances will be held to complement a selection of the featured films, starting with a Black History Month celebration event on February 23.

"Our latest public art installation, Drive-Thru, builds on DBP's mission to connect people through the power of shared spaces, storytelling and public art," said Regina Myer, President of Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. "Supporting local artists is at the core of our vision for the Plaza and by bringing diverse voices and perspectives to the forefront of the public realm, Drive-Thru exemplifies how individual experiences can become shared when viewed as a community. We invite all New Yorkers to visit Drive-Thru and enjoy the unique work that Soft-Firm has created and the Brooklyn-inspired videos it is providing a stage for."

"Drive-Thru provides a democratic platform that celebrates neighborhood voices," said Talitha Liu, Co-Founder of Soft-Firm. "After another year of distance and uncertainty, the installation projects a portal into the rich cultural fabric of Brooklyn."

"Soft-Firm is passionate about seeding interventions that come to life with public engagement," said Lexi Tsien, Co-Founder of Soft-Firm. "We're excited to create an armature that doubles as canvas and backdrop, animated by Brooklyn artists."

"Public spaces are most alive when they're sites of storytelling," said Deborah Marton, Executive Director, Van Alen Institute. "To create equitable cities, Van Alen Institute works to center communities in designing shared spaces. With this elegant portal into Brooklyn's voices, cultures, and histories, Soft-Firm's installation Drive-Thru shows the human connections that become possible in the spaces where our shared lives unfold. We applaud the generous civic vision of DBP and Two Trees in making this happen."

"We are thrilled to have Drive-Thru at the Plaza and to see Brooklyn's artists and cultural organizations collaborate to maximize this space's potential as a venue and gathering space," said Kate Gavriel, Cultural Affairs Director at Two Trees Management Co. "The Plaza at 300 Ashland was designed as a space for the community to come together and celebrate Brooklyn and the people in it-a role that has never been more important than during the pandemic."

Drive-Thru projects video on two 13.5' x 7.5' screens that rotate around a pivot at the center of a 30' circular wooden platform. These screens also act as outer walls of two wedge-shaped open-air spaces. On the interior of the installation, the pivot allows varying configurations of space while on the exterior, the screens can be oriented towards major view corridors at the site, visible from Lafayette Ave. and Flatbush Ave., and the stepped seating of the Plaza.

The Plaza at 300 Ashland has served as a hub for the arts since its unveiling in 2017, hosting events year-round, including film screenings, concerts, theater performances, dance and fitness classes, readings, community gatherings, and more - all free and open to the public as a part of DBP's ongoing series Downtown Brooklyn Presents.

VIDEO & LIVE PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE

February 17 - February 23

Ali Santana, Community: Rhythm / Movement / Joy (2022)

• Filmed on Lafayette Ave in 2012, this scene captures the rhythm, movement, joy and community tradition of BAM's Dance Africa Street Bazaar.

February 23 | 5:30-6:30PM

LIVE PERFORMANCE

• Launch of Drive-Thru honoring Black History Month: Senegalese Taneber Sunu Birr (Drum and Dance Circle)

February 24 - March 2

Nicholas Fraser, Follow/Unfollow (2016)

• Nicholas Fraser's Follow/Unfollow captures New Yorkers as they travel the city's ever-changing streetscape. As their paths cross in frame, a single person grows to two, two form a trio, the trio morphs into a crowd, stopping, shifting, and changing direction to a hypnotic effect.

March 2 - March 8

Simon Benjamin, Errantry (2021)

• Named after Édouard Glissant's theory, Simon Benjamin's Errantry is centered on the polyphonic rhythms of coastal space, the Caribbean sea, and the life sustained by it in a non-linear narrative that raises questions about time, labor, environmental degradation and the ongoingness of colonialism.

March 9 - March 15

Luna X Moya, What the Pier Gave Us (2021)

• In Luna X Moya's What the Pier Gave Us, a fisherman's ordinary day at an undisclosed New York City pier becomes a visual metaphor for the immigrant experience in the United States. This short film is part of an upcoming feature-length documentary.

March 16 - March 23

Olalekan Jeyifous, The Frozen Neighborhoods (Fly-through) (2021)

• Olalekan Jeyifous's The Frozen Neighborhoods (Fly-through) depicts a speculative future where poor and marginalized communities are cut off from travel, forcing them to develop advanced ecological technologies. This deceptively dystopian vision imagines the potential of community-focused innovation and creating a sustainable and self-contained world in Brooklyn.

March 25 - March 30

Tanika I. Williams, (construct)Clearing (2021) and Sanctuary (2021)

• As a meditation on quiet care, intention, intergenerational movement and labor, (construct)Clearing seeks to understand how we wear and repeat family patterns of silence and separation. Sanctuary illustrates the aftermath of African-Caribbean mothers leaving their daughters to immigrate to the United States, combining academic research, autobiographical expression, and archival interviews.

March 31 - April 5

Series of shorts by Ezra Wube: Flatbushtopia (2017), Bridge Street (2015), At the Same Moment (2013), Words of Wisdom (2016)

• This series of shorts by Ezra Wube offer snapshots of life across New York. These stop-motion animations, often developed with community input and participation, depict scenes in Flatbush, DUMBO, Jamaica, and on the subway.

April 6 - April 13

Aisha Amin, Choir (2020) and Friday (2019)

• Aisha Amin's film Choir explores the world within one of New York's most competitive youth choirs, while Friday is a portrait of the community within a historically black Brooklyn mosque as it fights gentrification.

VISITING DRIVE-THRU

Drive-Thru is best viewed starting at dusk.

The Plaza at 300 Ashland is conveniently situated in the heart of the Brooklyn Cultural District, at the intersection of Lafayette Ave and Flatbush Ave. The plaza is easily accessible - located only a short walk from the B, Q, 2/3 and 4/5 subway lines at Atlantic Barclays, the G train at Fulton St, and the C train at Lafayette Ave, as well as a number of bus stops. There is also paid parking along the surrounding streets.

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