Critical Writing Index

No Christmas Carrol, Few Expectations

by Arlene Raven

Village Voice, Dec. 17 Winter, 1991, p. 119

The article describes a public art installation in Manhattan using printed letters on ashphalt, written backwards and read as a reflection in the slanted mirror ceiling of a suggested shelter. The passage is taken from Dicken's Tale of Two Cities: "Its prophetic content implies belief in (if not possesssion of) the physicaal, mental, and spiritual conditions needed to bring about a "season of light" and a "spring of hope". Yet its appearance against the dense concerete and iron skyline of downtown New York City underlines its inadequacy as a real refuge from dangerous and dehumanizing elements there". Also mentioned are several orginizations attemptintg to bridge the divide between citizens and their urban environments.

ITEM 1991.031 – available for viewing in the Research Centre

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