Here are some pics I snapped while visiting Peace & Quiet, the installation in Times Square that gave vets and civilians a “quiet space” to interact. This spare, bright little hut, created by the architecture firm Matter of Practice in collaboration with the Times Square Alliance, drew a mix of vets, active military personnel, people in the know, and randoms off the street. Story Corps was there, too, recording the stories of anybody who felt like sharing. But the heart of the installation were the notes that civilians and vets left for one another. People put their questions and thoughts onto cards that read, “I am a civilian,” or “I am a vet,” and posted them to a bulletin  board. By Friday, which was the day the installation closed, the notes spread across one of the walls of the hut, creating a kind of open-ended conversation. Here are some of my favorites…I only wish we could see what the answers would be!

What was cool and interesting about this project was that it gave folks a new context in which to ask these questions. It took a conversation that usually happens behind closed doors, if it happens at all, and put it in a little yellow hut, in one of the busiest places on earth. When you remove the clinical frame, these conversations become less fraught, and more open. The writing itself was a valuable process–there was something cathartic in putting your question to paper, and posting it up for people to see. More importantly, it gave us a platform on which we could speak, be heard, and engage with each other, which speaks to the possibilities in public art to mobilize, catalyze, stir up the pot. But it’s only one step. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, Matter Practice and Story Corps do with the questions, dialogues, and stories they gathered. Otherwise, it’s just talk. And you know what they say about that.