Pedestrian Space

Visit the digital Fred Sandback Archive for examples of Sandback’s work.

On the insomnia in Zamora: what we don’t speak of, but the night lets us show.

These photos were taken during night walks, between 2020 and 2023, in the city of Zamora, Michoacán. During these years, some organizations named this city the most dangerous city in Mexico (Consejo Ciudadano para la Seguridad Pública y la Justicia Penal, 2022; Observatorio Regional Zamora, A.C., 2022 and 2023). The following are observations on the daily (or nocturnal) life of Zamora during these years, based on the creation of a registry of thousands of images, and on the gradual definition of an investigation about grief based on conversations, with images in hand, with an abundant variety of people awake at night.

As a New Yorker in Michoacán, I was initially upset that many people told me that I should not walk at night. However, over time I made my own reading of the news, no doubt with a bias of my own: I concluded that most of the shootings happened in broad daylight and that the nighttime ones did not happen in the street. As of 2017, I returned to my old hobby of walking, with a camera in hand, a Sony a6000, a tripod and a remote control.

Pedestrian Cinema
A street-level illuminated screen reflects the public back to itself in this public art installation playing a 48-hour repeated silent reel for passersby on Commonwealth Avenue March 26-27, 2026. The videos include Robert Pinsky’s Favorite Poem Project documentaries highlighting the connection between a poem and its reader as well as María Clara Cortés’ video, Río Magdalana, highlighting the changing conditions of landscape and humanity with the passage of time. Each film portrays a member of the public in the process of contextualizing and finding meaning in art in their environment.

The FPP in alignment with Fred Sandback and Pedestrian Space honor the intention of placing art “in the middle of things rather than on the periphery.”

The Favorite Poem Project:
At the Favorite Poem Project, we believe that poetry is a vocal, bodily art with a vigorous presence in the everyday – not just in college classrooms. Founded by U.S. Poet Laureate and former Boston University Professor Robert Pinsky, the FPP seeks to document and celebrate this presence, giving voice to the American audience for poetry through short video documentaries, educational resources, books, events, and more: favoritepoem.org

This illuminated projector will feature ten short videos of regular people sharing and discussing their favorite poems. Pinsky says:

“saying the words of a poem aloud
make one feel more able, more capable
than in ordinary life. […] It is a form of
collaboration, or mutual possession.”

 As you walk by, day or night, one of these poems may speak to you, too.

Pedestrian Cinema
A street-level illuminated screen reflects the public back to itself in this public art installation playing a 48-hour repeated silent reel for passersby on Commonwealth Avenue March 26-27, 2026. The videos include Robert Pinsky’s Favorite Poem Project documentaries highlighting the connection between a poem and its reader as well as María Clara Cortés’ video, Río Magdalana, highlighting the changing conditions of landscape and humanity with the passage of time. Each film portrays a member of the public in the process of contextualizing and finding meaning in art in their environment.

The FPP in alignment with Fred Sandback and Pedestrian Space honor the intention of placing art “in the middle of things rather than on the periphery.”

María Clara Cortés:
Río Magdalena hace parte de Duraciones y recorridos, una serie de videos y acciones simbólicas que hablan de la condición cambiante de seres que están en el paisaje (árboles, piedras, ríos, pastos) cuyas dimensiones temporales y edades me sobrecogen. Pienso las acciones como conversaciones con esos seres que me permiten tener una conciencia distinta de mi propia dimensión temporal, de la experiencia del paso del tiempo, y de la vida en la Tierra.

En el video Río Magdalena, camino repetidamente a lo largo de su orilla, imitando el continuo pasar del agua. Mi acción surge de la pregunta por la cualidad de ese ser antiguo que, en su continuo pasar, cambia y fluye incesantemente. Al caminar junto al río, me interesa, por un lado, resaltar la imposibilidad de que el tiempo se repita igual; y por otro, registrar la forma en que ambos, el río y yo, momento a momento, al pasar, somos distintos. El río Magdalena, o Caripuaña, que significa río grande, es una de las fuentes de agua más importantes de Colombia; se formó hace más de dos millones de años, mucho tiempo antes de que los humanos pobláramos sus orillas y camináramos a su lado.

Río Magdalena is part of Duraciones y recorridos (Durations and Journeys), a series of videos and symbolic actions that refer to the changing condition of beings in the landscape (trees, stones, rivers, grasses) whose temporal dimensions and long ages surprise me. I conceive these actions as conversations with those beings, which allow me to have a different awareness of my own temporal dimension, my experience of the passage of time, and the duration of life on Earth.

In the video Río Magdalena, I walk repeatedly alongside the Magdalena River, echoing the continuous flow of its water. The action arises from my query on the quality of this ancient being that, in its continuous flow, ebbs and twirls incessantly. As I walk alongside the river, I am interested, on the one hand, in highlighting the impossibility of time repeating itself and, on the other hand, in highlighting the way in which both the River and I, moment by moment, are different as we go by. The Magdalena River, or Caripuaña (big river) is one of the most important watercourses in Colombia. It was formed more than two million years ago, long before we humans populated its banks and walked alongside it.