Did you see the line outside of the New Haven Museum last week?

On Thursday, October 29, from 7-8pm, 107 performers gathered to form a long receiving line on the front steps of the New Haven Museum. The line started at the museum’s double doors and extended to the sidewalk on Whitney Avenue. The performance was viewable to casual street traffic and individuals arriving on foot to celebrate the Opening Reception of the Artspace exhibition, Three Decades of Change, on display just inside. The performers consisted of individuals, families, and groups who reside in New Haven, but do not self-identify a constituents of any one of the many target audiences for local art events that are advertised as “free and open to the public.” The line included refugees, immigrants, people experiencing homelessness, artists, students, post-graduates, and children, as well as visitors who joined the line after walking through. By standing together, the line was intended to make highly visible the solidarity and differences that binds and separates the residents of New Haven on a daily basis.

The performance was conceived and organized through a collaborative workshop led by the preeminent Cuban artist, Tania Bruguera, and eight artists based in New Haven, including Lani Asuncion, Ifeanyi Awachie, John Edmonds, Allison Irene Hornak, David Livingston, Jason Noushin, Nick Pfaff, and Petra Szilagyi, with support from Artspace Curator, Sarah Fritchey. Artspace mounted this formal description of the performance inside the museum: