Annie Saunders' Site-Specific CURRENT Invites People To Rediscover Lower Manhattan

As the world begins its emergence from the confines of the pandemic, as New Yorkers leave their homes once more and visitors return to the city, award-winning interdisciplinary artist Annie Saunders and her acclaimed collaborators including Andrew Schneider, Jackie! Zhou/One Thousand Birds and Marc Downie of OpenEndedGroup, invites audiences to experience CURRENT.

This soundwalk, which starts and ends at Zuccotti Park and travels through Lower Manhattan, draws on influences from the French Situationist art movement, through the 2008 financial crisis, to the 2012 floods that affected the area. Blending historical research, first-person narrative, and innovative sound design, this truly immersive experience sheds fresh light on Lower Manhattan and raises broader questions of sustainability, a key theme in Saunders' work, as the city emerges into a new era.

Accessed using personal mobile device and headphones, CURRENT immerses participants in both the history and the present-day stories of the area, using non-linear narration, binaural sound, composition, and site-specific recordings to draw together a narrative that includes themes of water, time, construction, destruction, synchronicity, and resilience. CURRENT offers a new navigation system for interior and exterior maps, made of observation, imagination, attention, synchronicity, and magic, made for encountering each other and arteries of the city; the fragmented, non-linear, reconstructed, deconstructed, composite mosaic hidden just beneath the surface, waiting to be noticed.

"There is no new world that you make without the old world. Under the seeming disorder of the old city is a marvellous order and freedom." said Jane Jacobs, writer, urbanist, and activist. "A complex order, composed of movement and change: the dance of the city, replete with new improvisations."

Guided on a walk from Zuccotti Park, past One New York Plaza and back, passing through notable landmarks as Trinity Church, the New York Stock Exchange, and Battery Park, audience members will experience unique stories and magical moments that only this beautifully complex city can produce.

Commissioned and presented by Arts Brookfield and produced by Octopus Theatricals, CURRENT has been selected for the 2021 Tribeca Festival, in the year the festival celebrates its 20th anniversary. It will be available to access from June 12 - October 1 through the Brookfield Properties' website.

Annie Saunders is a multidisciplinary creator and director of site-specific experiences and has created award-winning multi-platform projects for major arts institutions including The Public Theater, The Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Broad Stage and Edinburgh's Summerhall, as well as site-specific projects in disused spaces set for demolition and multi award winning experiential campaigns for multinational brands. Saunders is the founder and artistic director of site-specific theatre company Wilderness, a core collaborator and performer with Lars Jan on Holoscenes, and her experimental project The Wreck for Opera Omaha was called 'ingenious...a persuasive expression of complex female feeling,' by the Wall Street Journal.

A previous headphone-based experience, The Home, an installation for one audience member at a time for Santander Bank/Domestic Violence Awareness Month, won the D&AD Yellow Pencil ("Creative Excellence") for Spatial Design and Installation Design, alongside several other industry awards. The work in archives in the Department of Film at MOMA NYC. Her work for HP's 'Family Portraits' campaign won a Shorty award for Diversity and Inclusion. Annie's ongoing multi-platform collaboration, Up In Arms with Anna Maria Nabirye, for physical and digital spaces is in development and touring with ArtsAdmin and Octopus Theatricals.

CURRENT was created collaboratively by Annie Saunders, who provided original concept, direction, devising and narration, alongside Andrew Schneider (concept development, devising, narration, on-location recording and audio design), Jackie! Zhou and One Thousand Birds (sound design, engineering and spatialization) and OpenEndedGroup (back-development and technology creation). The work was commissioned by Arts Brookfield for One Liberty Plaza and One New York Plaza, in Lower Manhattan.

"The need for a conscientious ritual of return to public space, to the body, to one another, to the city
as a living, breathing organism which we create through our own participation, has never felt more profound to me than in the past year." said artist Annie Saunders, speaking about CURRENT. "I hope this walk feels like a journey with an observant companion, drawing your attention to it, spatially and temporally, in new and unexpected ways. Arts Brookfield and the Tribeca Festival have always been cultural beacons in bringing audiences to Lower Manhattan for transportive, memorable, entertaining experiences. We are thrilled to be bringing this soundwalk to the Immersive line-up in 2021."

"Arts Brookfield is proud to support the innovative work of Annie Saunders, whose blended process of research and site-specific devised work aligns well with Brookfield Properties' approach to placemaking," said Elysa Marden, Senior Vice President, Arts Brookfield for Brookfield Properties. "We're excited for her to create the first soundwalk that Arts Brookfield has commissioned, and we feel it is a unique way to connect our properties and highlight the history of the area."

"Octopus Theatricals is thrilled to be producing Annie's site-specific immersive soundwalk through Lower Manhattan, said Octopus Theatricals' founder Mara Isaacs "As we emerge from a pandemic, the soundwalk inspires us to reimagine the spaces we exist in and find the connections that lie beneath the surface, asking important questions about sustainability and resilience that are more relevant than ever."

"2021 is the most dynamic year yet for Tribeca Immersive, especially as it relates to the diversity of experiences," said Loren Hammonds, VP, Immersive Programming, Senior Programmer, Film & Immersive for Tribeca Festival. "Attendees, both in-person and online, will experience everything from live AI performers and animated adventures to a location-based augmented reality memorial."

Access at: https://www.brookfieldproperties.com/en/our-approach/events/annie-saunders-current-23.html

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