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“In The Future” Video, Mural, & Billboard

“In the future” Video, Mural, & Billboard

Art directed the visual graphics and and type animation for the short film “In The Future”. We revisioned how the typography would animated onto the short film without destructing the beauty of the footages and allowing the poetry flow and be heard through.

The inspiration was old-school karaoke videos — as karaoke is a huge family and friend gathering event in Asian culture. We reimagined how the words can animated and appear onto the screen allowing the person to soak in every word of the poem. The typography style we chose is delicate, modern, and a mix of contemporary.

We relayed this same style across murals and billboard.

On view outside Playwright Horizons in Times Square at 416 W 42nd St from May 24 2021- July 2021.

Part of Playwright Horizons Public Art Series, following installations by Dread Scott, Ken Gonzales Day and Jimmy Ballistic

 

Design Includes

Typography
Animation
Video
Mural
Billboard

Credit

Written & Directed by Jess X. Snow
Art Directed by Tiffany Jen
Animation by Michael Enten
Cinematography by Jess X. Snow, Zamarin Wahdat, and Noelia María Muíño González
Original Music by Natalie Rose LeBrecht.

Featured in the installations are portraits of the Asian community: Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu, Wangping Oshiro, Kit Yan, Wo Chan, Nathan Singhapok, Poppy Liu, Vera Lam, Tiffany Jen, Philip De Guzman, Fenton Li, Kyoko Takenaka, Isabella Borgeson, Austin Deng, and Yiqing Zhao.

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From the Curators:

"This historic moment finds us all grasping for a sustainable way forward through a racially divided country, enormous economic disparities, the ongoing weight of patriarchy, an endangered planet, and of course, a global pandemic. Artist Jess X. Snow offers us a vision for how to meet this conflicted world in the work shown here. Their framing of Asian American and Pacific Islander communities centers peace in the wake of continued violence. Snow gifts us the opportunity to imagine a new world that protects and celebrates the vast range of beauty and humanity that we see within these East Asian, Southeast Asian, and Mixed Asian people of various gender identities. Against the blur of life on the streets, these portraits hold people in moments of quiet sanctuary and create a renewed presence, and a temporary connection between the earth-bound viewer and the liberated figures Snow conjures. Inspired by karaoke subtitles, each portrait and each line of animated poetry gestures toward a loving future without anti-Asian violence, which necessitates a future without anti-Blackness, white supremacy, policing, nations, binaries, and borders. Snow empowers us with the crucial first step of bold imagination, and opens a portal toward liberation and healing."

– Natasha Sinha and David Zinn

2021

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Billboard:

Commissioned by For Freedoms for their 2021 #AAPISolidarity Initiative

This inter-generational billboard for is a prayer for a loving future for our Asian communities without violence against us, and white supremacy.

TAGS:

@forfreedoms #ForFreedoms #AAPISolidarity


Location: 1201 Half St SE, Washington DC
Partner: Orange Barrel Media (@orange_barrel_media)

Words by: Adriel Luis
Art Director: Tiffany Jen
Graphic Designer: Michael Enten
Photographer: Brian Oh (@brianoh11)

 
 
 

Mural:

In The Future our Asian Community is Safe is a mural on Mosco St in Manhattan’s Chinatown accompanied by a website that imagines how we transcend white supremacy and anti-Asian violence. The mural depicts a youth holding a red envelope casting a spotlight on local elders in monumental embrace and as indigenous plants of Lenapehoking (NYC) grow from the concrete and soar into the sky above them. The mural was envisioned and painted with youth, adults and elders in The W.O.W. Project community in Chinatown. Starting this fall, visitors to the mural will be able to use Augmented Reality to see the mural animate to life and immerse themselves a virtual healing space of ambient music and letters depicting wishes for the future written by community members. Visitors globally are invited to share an offering that manifests safety, mutual care, and communal protection for the future of our Asian community.

Art Director: Tiffany Jen
Graphic Designer: Michael Enten
Mural painting: Jess x. Snow