AIRTIME

Social activist, videographer, and artist Clayton Patterson contributes his archive of decades of still photos and revolutionary video to illuminate the qualities essential to communities around the globe: empathy, compassion, and a passion for justice.

Patterson's work documents the art, life, and times of the Lower East Side in Manhattan. He is well known for documenting the Police Riot in Tompkins Square Park in 1988. During this interview with Bad Rep Multimedia, Clayton recalled his night at the 1988 police riots and weighed in on this multi-decade issue in our country. During the interview photos from the riot as well as other images he took of the Lower East Side in the 1980s were shown via Julie Petrusak's video projection.

also in the works...

“..light of the sky..” attempts to viscerally affect people who have had little personal experience of fearing the sudden loss of freedom in their own or loved ones’ lives. Or additionally, of having to spend time in jail for the crime of poverty, for simply lacking the resources to post bail.

Using varying mediums including dance, rap, poems, song, even uni-cycle juggling we aim to connect and inform audiences about our present system of mass incarceration that neither protects nor elevates communities. Our artist activists will creatively illustrate how it instead debases society by costing much more in recidivism, wasted lives, and the lessening of empathy for our less fortunate neighbors.

Most importantly, we believe this project has the potential to make palpable that regardless of skin color or economic status any loving caretaker is equally anguished by a child’s suffering. That this pain is universal and the reason we need to carefully consider when, how, and most especially, if we should “shut fellow human beings from ‘the light of the sky…’