A short interview with Dave McKenzie on the occasion of 1:54 New York 2016 – where as a special project for FORUM, Dave McKenzie produced a slow text-based performance using prototyped sneakers: This ship would set sail, even anchored as it was, 2016.

The soles of the shoes act like keys on a typewriter, which allowed him to print text on a paper surface through touch and bodily pressure. With reference to the centennial anniversary of Pan-African leader Marcus Garvey’s arrival in New York City in 1916, the text was generated as a series of short performances/gestures that reveal itself over time.

Trained in printmaking, McKenzie’s new work references and reimagines newsprint, a communication tool and vital organizing vehicle for Garvey once he arrived in the United States. Much like letterpress, lithography, and woodblock printing, McKenzie’s actions produce misprints as well as a record of the act of mark-making impressions. In McKenzie’s hands, the newspaper is rendered an ephemeral form as the artist creates images and text using his body and objects, creating a visual and sonic matrix through which we come to think about the possibilities for a story and a body to merge as image and speech.