You gotta give them hope. Harvey Milk

Hope is the sea change within ourselves, how we imagine our world and those who are in it. My middle name is Hope, and hope brought me to Worthington Yards. To hope is to gamble, and with hope comes a world of possibilities. Worthington Yards and its developer, Dalad Group, took a gamble (on me) when they turned this old warehouse building into an art gallery and invited me to fill it, with the idea that art could ignite community building and catalyze civic connection.

Hope doesn’t mean denying our realities, it means facing them. Hope is where pain, disappointment, loss and grief can coexist with change. Hope almost always delivers new forms of resistance, deepens communication and cooperation, and ultimately presents a way for this change to occur.

I have checked in with my resident friends and the staff at Worthington Yards and know they are staying safe, as they walk their dogs, get necessary groceries, or just take out their trash. I hope the works of art on the walls that they pass each day are the distractions they need; and that the paintings and photos, videos and sculptures comfort them, and act as reminders about the important and meaningful things in their lives as the entire world has slammed on the brakes.

One of the works in the Dalad Collection at Yards is a Scott Goss video projection that is called Sometimes You Have to Jump into the Deep End to See How Well You Can Swim. A ledge is perched high near the ceiling, and an image of Scott is projected on the ledge where he is making several anxious attempts to take a leap of faith and jump into the lake that appears on another monitor below. He engages the viewers’ curiosity by encouraging them to look up, identify, and interact so they can fully participate in how he feels taking that risk. Like Scott, we all have the opportunity to reimagine our alternative futures.

Tinnerman Lofts, another new Dalad Group project being developed in Ohio City, will continue featuring art as a major component in its vision and possibility and will open later this year. Leaning into this uncertainty offers an unnerving, yet exhilarating sense that anything is possible. At Yards Projects at Worthington Yards, we continue to believe in what is possible.

We miss you and hope to see you all soon.

YARDS PROJECTS, WORTHINGTON YARDS

725 Johnson Court

Cleveland, Ohio 44113

Yardsproject.com