Dreaming with the Archives is a public art exhibition that transforms Brooklyn Bridge Park into a canvas for radical imagination through augmented reality (AR). This groundbreaking exhibition invites visitors to experience digital monuments to Brooklyn’s layered histories — that exist atop and surrounding the park — while engaging with the current landscape and inspiring futures re-dreamed.
As you move through the Park, your mobile device becomes a portal through which to encounter immersive augmented reality monuments created by visionary artists Ari Melenciano, Olalekan Jeyifous, Kiyan Williams, Wangechi Mutu, Jeremiah Ojo, and Hank Willis Thomas. Each of the artists created site-specific artworks to honor the abundant flora, fauna, agriculture, skilled laborers, — enslaved and free — and the sounds that make up the rich cultural history and ecology of Brooklyn and the African diaspora.
Dreaming with the Archives invites us all to imagine new futures for our public spaces — futures grounded in our shared pasts and radical possibility. Juneteenth 2025 marks the opening of a portal in public space for NYC to engage with our dreams of liberation and the stories powering our collective memory, through the Summer.
Presented in collaboration with Brooklyn Bridge Park, this exhibition marks the inaugural moment of Kinfolk Tech’s year-long, multi-city initiative, Dreaming with the Archives, activating imaginations and preserving stories of place through art and technology across NYC, New Orleans, and Philadelphia.
Free and open to the public. Download the Kinfolk app and visit Brooklyn Bridge Park to experience the full exhibition, June 19 – August 30, 2025.
