Keeping their eye on the ball

Keystone

People walk under a huge red ball installed on the Place de l’Europe in Lausanne on July 8 as part of the RedBall Project by US artist Kurt Perschke. The ball, which has appeared in cities around the world, is touring Lausanne from July 3 to 9, changing its location each day.

According to Perschke, “on the surface, the experience seems to be about the ball itself as an object, but the true power of the project is what it can create for those who experience it”.

“As RedBall travels around the world, people approach me on the street with excited suggestions about where to put it in their city. In that moment the person is not a spectator but a participant in the act of imagination. I have witnessed it across continents, diverse age spans, cultures, and languages, always issuing an invitation. That invitation to engage, to collectively imagine, is the true essence of the RedBall Project,” he said.

“The larger arc of the project is how each city responds to that invitation and, over time, what the developing story reveals about our individual and cultural imagination.”