Creative Time Announces 'Bring Down The Walls'

Creative Time, in partnership with The Fortune Society, artist Phil Collins and over 100 collaborators, is excited to announce the programming for Bring Down The Walls, a three-part public art project which turns an unconventional lens on the prison industrial complex through house music and nightlife. Located at Firehouse, Engine Company 31, a historic, decommissioned fire station in Lower Manhattan, Bring Down The Walls will be free and open to the public each Saturday in May starting May 5.

Bring Down the Walls consists of a communal space that functions as a school by day and dance club by night, as well as an album of classic house tracks re-recorded by formerly incarcerated vocalists and electronic musicians.

During daylight hours Bring Down The Walls operates as a school for radical thought and political exchange featuring conversations, workshops, and convenings led by people directly impacted by the prison system and those working to change it. The curriculum represents the broad spectrum of perspectives and voices in the struggle for justice, offering new ways to build deeper knowledge around mass incarceration and prison abolition. Throughout the day, discussions exploring the history of house music are threaded into the dialogue. Direct services will also be available for free counseling on civil, legal, and housing issues. Daytime collaborators include Baz Dreisinger, author of Incarceration Nations, Black & Pink, an organization of LGBTQ prisoners, and Rise and Resist, a direct action group committed to opposing, disrupting, and defeating any government act that threatens democracy, equality, and civil liberties.

By night, the space will transform into a dance club and performance venue, celebrating both the political and communal aspects of house music, and embracing the history of nightclubs as sanctuaries of shared intimacy, solidarity, and liberation. Nightlife programming is developed in collaboration with Nowadays, a gathering place and party space in Ridgewood. Each week will feature new takeovers by collectives, DJs and performers representing New York City's current, vibrant nightlife community, including Soul Summit, House of Vogue, Brujas, and Papi Juice.

For more information on daytime programs, nighttime lineups and how to register for your free passes, visit creativetime.org or call 212-729-3481.

Photo: Bring Down The Walls. Sing Sing Correctional Facility. Photo: Adam Newport-Berra.