**For more information about the project and branch locations, please revisit this page for updates. Due to COVID-19, this project will be happening following all regulations set forth by the CDC, Federal, State and City agencies.
Brooklyn Public Library invites socially engaged artist, educator and former journalist Sheryl Oring to stage her ongoing project, I Wish to Say in response to the 2020 Election cycle. At participating branches and online on October 17th, you are invited to dictate messages to the next US President. Typists will use old-fashioned typewriters to transcribe your words onto postcards which will be sent to the White House after the 2020 Presidential election. I Wish to Say gives our patrons a chance to vocalize their concerns, hopes and dreams for a continued democracy.
Oring has presented more than 100 performances of I Wish to Say at dozens of venues across the country, including in museums, civic and public venues, schools and universities for the last 16 years, an evergreen form for the public to exercise their right to speak to power. Your messages will join thousands of others and be added to the project’s ongoing archive.
Following the performance, documentation of the messages will be on display, locations permitting.
Links to Event:
October 17th, live on Central Plaza
About Sheryl Oring:
Artist Sheryl Oring has typed thousands of postcards to the President from locations across the U.S. since launching her I Wish to Say project in 2004. Her book, “Activating Democracy: The I Wish to Say Project,” was published by University of Chicago Press. She collaborated with composer Lisa Bielawa on Mauer Broadcast, which was presented at various locations in Berlin in November 2019 for the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Other recent projects include large-scale public art commissions at airports in Tampa and San Diego. Oring is the recipient of grants from Franklin Furnace Fund, Creative Capital Foundation, the American Council on Germany, the New York Foundation for the Arts and the North Carolina Arts Council. She is Professor and Chair of the James Pearson Duffy Department of Art and Art History at Wayne State University in Detroit.
Preview the Exhibit
