Prayer in the City

Yesterday Wendy and I spent our Yom Kippur day off shopping on the East Side. We went to The Container Store and to Bed Bath & Beyond. I am so married.

As we worked our way from store to store, lugging big, heavy bags, I saw something that looked like an old telephone booth. I did a double-take because my eyes picked up something wrong. On my second glance I noticed that the booth said "Prayer" instead of "Phone."

I stopped to examine the booth a little more closely and saw that where the international symbol for a telephone should be there were two praying hands.

Inside the phone booth were instructions on how to use the booth. There's a padded kneeler that you can pull down. So I did.

I said a quick prayer (because the world can never have enough) and Wendy took pictures with my camera phone.

I can say this, it's cozy in there. I'm not sure if it's my preferred place to pray, but considering the lack of open doors at churches these days, the booth may have to do.

Next to it was a plaque explaining that the prayer booth is an art exhibit that challenges people to talk about prayer in public. I wonder if these were placed throughout the city, if it would catch on?

The NYC Department of Parks and Recreation had this description up in their website:

Dylan Mortimer, Public Prayer Booths September – November 2008 Tramway Plaza, Manhattan

Image: Dylan Mortimer, Public Prayer Booths
Description: Dylan Mortimer’s work deals with how private faith functions in the public realm. The interactive Public Prayer Booth is a synthesis of a telephone booth and a prayer station. The viewer can flip down a kneeler and engage in prayer.

“My goal is to spark dialogue about a topic often avoided, and often treated cynically by the contemporary art world,” says Mortimer. “I employ the visual language of signage and public information systems, using them as a contemporary form of older religious communication systems: stained glass, illuminated manuscripts, church furniture, etc. I balance humor and seriousness, sarcasm and sincerity, in a way that bridges a subject matter that is often presented as heavy or difficult.”

The artist is based in Kansas City, and is a recent graduate of NY’s School of Visual Arts Masters (MFA) program.