Joshua-Michéle Ross

During the virtual performance The Adjacent Possible, which ran at the height of the pandemic, artist Joshua Michele Ross would open by collecting participants’ desires. Ross would then recite them back at the end of the show as a means of closing with a sense of community and hope. These desires - representing 1089 statements from 37 countries - range from funny to sad, everyday to deeply poignant. 

Now working in collaboration with artist Hope Meng, this project puts these desires into an immersive time-capsule, set within the confines of a freight elevator. 

As one enters, they are greeted by an ambient, quadraphonic soundtrack below a slow recitation of each desire. Quilted fabric lines the walls and features text of desires from participants around the world. Riders are drawn into a warm cocoon filled with sentiments from a paradoxical time when we felt togetherness in our isolation and new possibility in the midst of a tragedy.

An elevator, like the pandemic, represents a transitional space - a vehicle taking us from the known past into an ambiguous new future - while the enclosed space mirrors the state of lockdown.

To Be Among Friends creates a site of remembrance and a collective prayer for possibility, togetherness, and the exaltation of simple pleasures.