DMS PhD Candidate Jason Livingston's Exhibition 'In the Absence of the Sun' Opens at Squeaky Wheel

A billboard on a sunny winter day, with leafless trees and some vegetation. Train tracks intersect the photograph. The billboard, mostly in yellow, features a haiku, credited to Jason Livingston and Phoebe A. Cohen: “No one noon, look up! Do you know that I loved you in the sun’s absence?” Vertical lines in gradients of orange and yellow are next to the hashtag #InthePathofTotality, and Squeaky Wheel’s logo.

One of Jason Livingston and Phoebe A. Cohen's billboard haiku outside Squeaky Wheel's Tri-Main center location on Main Street (Buffalo, NY)

Opening next Friday at Squeaky Wheel and on view around our city: Join us on March 22, 6–8 pm for In the Sun’s Absence, a new exhibition by DMS PhD Candidate Jason Livingston, with Phoebe A. Cohen on the occasion of the coming solar eclipse. Featuring both new and existing works by the artist, In the Sun’s Absence asks audiences to contemplate how “in the sun’s absence, we have a chance to notice its significance.” Join us for the opening, with brief remarks by Livingston and Cohen at 7 pm.

Along with the exhibition at Squeaky Wheel, the project features billboards throughout Buffalo featuring haikus written by participants of Squeaky Wheel’s youth and adult education programs in workshops led by Livingston and Cohen that reflect on the exhibition’s theme. You can already see one of the billboards, featuring a haiku by Livingston and Cohen, installed across Tri-Main Center on Main Street.

This work is supported by the Simons Foundation and is part of its ‘In the Path of Totality’ initiative.