Willie’s dream (2021)
Fullerton Carriage House, Newburgh, NY
The work considers how sound, memory, and participation circulate across multiple bodies, forming a shared system of experience.
Willie’s Dream, 2021
Collaboration with Chihiro Shibayama × Kate Bae
Acrylic, end caps, jump rings, lobster clasps, twine on wood
52 × 94 × 6 inches
Fullerton Carriage House
Willie’s Dream is a collaborative installation with percussionist Chihiro Shibayama that traces the life and legacy of Newburgh-born composer William Fullerton Jr. (1854–1888). Centered on his relationship with stage designer Percy Anderson (1851–1928), the work reimagines a largely forgotten history of artistic and personal connection.
Suspended acrylic slats function as both sculptural elements and playable instruments. When struck sequentially from left to right, they produce the melody of “The Locket Song” from Fullerton Jr.’s opera Lady of the Locket, allowing visitors—regardless of musical training—to activate the composition through touch.
Bridging sound and form, the work invites participation as a mode of remembrance. It reflects on home, intimacy, and the fragile persistence of love and artistic exchange across time.
Project Background
Willie’s Dream emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, when both Chihiro Shibayama and I found ourselves working as customer service representatives for the U.S. Census Bureau—our artistic practices abruptly halted. The New York Census office became an unexpected meeting ground: a multilingual environment where fourteen languages were spoken, and workers from vastly different backgrounds gathered under strict conditions. With personal belongings prohibited—no phones, no notebooks—we were left with only our bodies, time, and imagination.
In brief moments of pause, Chihiro would tap rhythms on desks and keyboards, improvising percussive beats. Others joined—dancing, singing—before we returned to silence and routine. These fleeting acts of collective creativity, formed under constraint, became the seed of our collaboration.
What began as a simple desire to bring sound into my visual practice evolved into a larger, collective effort. The project ultimately found its home at the birthplace of composer William Fullerton Jr., connecting our initial intuition to a specific historical site through a series of unlikely encounters and collaborations.
The work came together through the support and contributions of many, including historian and founder of the Fullerton Cultural Center Michael Green, sculptor Jeff Wallace, and Newburgh Community Bank Project Director Diana Mangaser, whose initiative made the installation possible.
Process & Context
The installation developed through a process of trial and error. Early on, we struggled to determine how the suspended slats could function both structurally and musically. It was only through repeated experimentation that the system began to resolve. When Chihiro first activated the slats as an instrument, the work came fully into focus—sound and form aligning in a way that felt immediate and alive.
This project also marks a longstanding desire in my practice: to bring sound into painting. Music carries a direct, affective power—it reaches the body before language—and I was drawn to the possibility of embedding that quality within a visual structure that anyone could activate.
The work emerged during a period of profound instability. During the pandemic, alongside widespread loss and isolation, I experienced repeated acts of verbal and physical harassment as an Asian woman. These encounters—daily, cumulative—shaped the emotional ground from which this piece developed. In response to an environment marked by fear and hostility, I sought to create a work that offered a different register: one of participation, resonance, and shared presence.
Installed at the Fullerton Carriage House, Willie’s Dream remains accessible to the public, inviting visitors to engage the work directly through touch and sound.
