Artist Shaun Leonardo, in collaboration with community members, leads a series of interactive activities throughout the day in You walk…, in honor of Juneteenth. Explore the full schedule of events below.

You walk… is an interactive installation by Brooklyn-based multi-disciplinary artist Shaun Leonardo. Translating his performance practice into a participatory installation, Leonardo offers a series of visual and textual prompts — drawing from themes present in exhibitions on view throughout the museum — to invite us to consider how we process and embody space, ideas, and connectivity.

Schedule:

12pm – 1pm: Check out Shaun Leonardo’s You walk… installation alongside the artist and curator. Enjoy light snacks and refreshments.

1pm – 2pm: Join in for an artist talk with Shaun Leonardo who introduces his performative artistic practice that recognizes our shared human values and relationships. Through textual prompts that he designed for his installation, he will consider with the audience: What does it mean to come back together after quarantine? How might we improve our interactions with each other? In what new ways are we realizing we are connected? And in honor of Juneteenth, the annual holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States, Shaun will explore the idea of freedom and its physicality through the use of a new prompt — what is the experience of freedom even in the subtlest of acts?

2pm – 2:30pm, 2:30 – 3pm, 3:30 – 4:00pm: WordXWord has invited seven poets to create and perform responses to — and inside of — Leonardo’s You walk…, Melissa Cairns, Curtis Elfenbein, Evan Goodermote, Alex Hicks, Dianne Olsen, Grace Rossman, and Stan Spencer. Following the performances there will be an opportunity for visitors to craft their own responses. WordXWord encourages poets to accept a greater role in the cultural landscape. For more information, visit WordXWordFestival.com.

All day: Jason Lucas’ Reverse Racism Auditory Spoken Word
Access spoken word artist Jason Lucas’s work-in-progress Reverse Racism listening experience, which combines spoken word and percussion. Four chapters are available just for the day: Tokenism, The Divine, Policing & Brutality, Propaganda. Take a seat or stroll through the galleries to engage with this experience. Headphones are recommended. Visit the Box Office upon arrival to stream.

Following the You walk… activation, at 4pm Passion Fruit Dance Company invites audiences to an excerpt of its piece Dance Within Your Dance followed by a lecture by the artists. Performed by Lauriane Ogay and Tatiana Desardouin, the work connects audiences with the techniques, rhythms, and essence of hip-hop and house dance styles. Learn more about this free event and RSVP here.

Major support for Shaun Leonardo: You walk… is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. Related programming is made possible in part by the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation’s Arts Build Community initiative.