Joseph Michael
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Voices for the Future

An iceberg on the Secretariat, and six young voices, ahead of the Climate Action Summit.

Medium
Architectural projection, two acts
Site
UN Secretariat & General Assembly, New York
Date
September 2019
Building height
505 ft / 154 m
Music
Rhian Sheehan, Brian Eno
Produced with
Project Pressure; Permanent Mission of New Zealand
Voices for the Future

Voices for the Future is an immersive art installation produced in collaboration with the environmental charity Project Pressure and the Permanent Mission of New Zealand. It lit up the United Nations General Assembly and Secretariat buildings ahead of the UN’s Climate Action Summit and the global school strikes in September 2019.

The work opens with an iteration of Antarctica — while you were sleeping: an iceberg slowly crashing down the sides of the 505-foot Secretariat, bringing the remoteness of the Antarctic into the core of urban New York. Rhian Sheehan’s score reflects how icebergs crack, shift and breathe, revealing their fragility.

The second act carries the voices of six young advocates speaking their hopes and fears for the future. Each spoke one of the six official UN languages and represented one of the six populated continents: Ahmed Badr in Arabic, Greta Thunberg in English, Jason Guan in Mandarin, El Mehdi Zairi in French, Karen Miluzca Pérez Panduro in Spanish and Sasha Shugay in Russian. Brian Eno opened his catalogue to the second half.

The iceberg on the Secretariat facade.
The second act.

2 images · click any to view

A compelling visual prelude to the Climate Action Summit that combined a visual depiction of climate change, a collapsing iceberg, with the voices of six young people expressing their expectations and demands for a future in which leaders rise to the challenge.

Luis Alfonso de Alba
Secretary-General’s Special Envoy, 2019 Climate Action Summit

Behind the scenes

The build and the nights in New York, photographed by Bob Zuur and Tom O'Malley.

The United Nations, the morning of the build. The tent on the lawn is the projection control room. Photograph: Bob Zuur.
Planning the show. Photograph: Bob Zuur.
On site with the United Stage Associates crew. Photograph: Bob Zuur.
Taking stereo photographs of the set-up. Photograph: Tom O'Malley.
Projectors going into the tent. Photograph: Bob Zuur.
Carrying a projector in. Photograph: Bob Zuur.
Behind the scenes in Bed-Stuy, computers humming out renders. Photograph: Bob Zuur.
Lining up the projection. Photograph: Bob Zuur.
Manhattan from above. Photograph: Bob Zuur.
The Secretariat lit, from across the East River. Photograph: Bob Zuur.
At the UN reception. Photograph: Bob Zuur.
Checking the projector line-up. Photograph: Bob Zuur.
The crowd on First Avenue filming the building. Photograph: Bob Zuur.
Projector beams across the lawn. Photograph: Bob Zuur.
Inside the General Assembly building. Photograph: Bob Zuur.
The crew dinner. Photograph: Bob Zuur.
The crew. Photograph: Tom O'Malley.
The last moments in Brooklyn before parting ways. Photograph: Bob Zuur.

18 images · click any to view

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