American Dream is part of an ongoing, community-based public art project entitled “Casual Conversations” that explores migration, displacement, and assimilation through dialogue and interactions with strangers. We started “Casual Conversations” in 2007 with support from the Six Points Fellowship.

The first version of American Dream was made in a popular Russian language bookstore called “St. Petersburg” in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. We asked shoppers and store staff to share their American Dream with us by writing or drawing it with a magic marker on a “thought bubble”. Why did we use a bookstore? During the Iron Curtain-era, books and films played a very important role in the shaping of an image of the West. Here are some photos: