Together, I said, we shall boil fire and stop fish.
-Werner Herzog to Lotte Eisner after walking to Paris from Munich. Of Walking in Ice (1974).
For the next two months, I will be collecting a piece of paper from every single Brooklyn block. The collage will be similar in grid and color to my cartographies of San Francisco and Manhattan, although each piece will represent the block from which it came. My strategy of collection will meander amongst: walking straight lines and sharp turns waterfront to waterfront, exploring entire neighborhoods at a time, and days with no plan at all.
To represent each block, my eyes will be keen to the vernacular, emotions, colors, organizations, and establishments of the pieces I find or acquire. Once assembled, the viewer will literally read Brooklyn.
I can barely contain my excitement as I imagine meeting shopkeepers from which I will inevitably buy something I don’t need, students skipping school, glowing new mothers with bundled strollers, baristas with a delicious boost, and other transient bi-coastals.
My walks begin Monday, February 6. If you see a highly freckled Asian with short black hair, be sure to say, “hello”.
71 SQUARE MILES 