JOIN MAILING LIST Book Archives Prompts Videos Press Blog About Calendar Current Walks Below are selected quotes from press we've received. Click on the links to read the full articles. For all press inquiries, please contact Todd Shalom via email. Click here to download a PDF of selected press clips. ::::::::::::: Features ::::::::::::: "Elastic City Wraps Up Its Great Participatory Walk Experiment" Extended Play 8/1/16 "The Last Walk. Elastic City’s Exit, Wistful and Weird" New York Theater 7/27/16 "After Seven Years, a Magical Series of City Walks Hangs Up Its Laces" Bedford + Bowery (New York Magazine) 7/27/16 Editors Pick: Becca Blackwell's "This is my Worst Nightmare" Artnet 7/19/16 "Todd Shalom on Poetic Decision-Making" Odyssey Works 7/15/16 "Since 2010, the organization Elastic City has hosted free, artist-led walking tours that move through urban spaces in unconventional ways. Whether taking tiny steps through Stuyvesant Town or using plastic bags as pillows on the pavement in Union Square, participants are invited to be curious, playful pedestrians." New York Times 6/29/16 "Led by a stellar roster of writers, performers, dancers, and other creative minds you'd be happy to follow anywhere..." Village Voice 6/1/16 "New York City is filled with potentially poetic moments, provided you’re open to them — but sometimes it helps to be reminded." Hyperallergic 5/25/16 "Walking and Talking: Elastic City Announces Final Festival" New York Times 5/25/16 "50 Essential Summer Festivals" New York Times 5/20/16 "Buenos Aires, entre Nueva York y Berlín: caminar es un arte" Clarín (Argentina) 3/20/16 "Niegel Smith Is an Outsider’s Insider. The director likes to walk on theatre’s wild side, but can he keep the show going at NYC’s Flea Theater?" American Theater Magazine 11/4/15 Elastic City featured in "Group Efforts: Changing Public Space." Edited by Gavin Browning. Interviews with Hayal Pozanti, Todd Shalom, Greta Hansen, Adam Koogler, Kyung-Jae Kim, and Karen Finley, with an essay by Mabel Wilson. Columbia GSAPP Books on Architecture. October 2015 "A singalong ‘Annie’ tour, and other NYC walks off the beaten path" New York Post 8/17/15 "Stretch Your Legs and Imagination with Elastic City" Extended Play 8/12/15 "On paper, this festival may look like a series of walks. In a way it is, but these seemingly simple trips outside are designed to make participants rethink urban life." New York Times 7/30/15 "Jennifer Krasinski on an Elastic City walk with Wayne Koestenbaum" Artforum 7/29/15 "NY-based pioneer of artist-led participatory walks" Hyperallergic 7/2/15 "Elastic City Festival reinvents what creative collaboration looks like." Time Out New York 7/1/15 "Elastic City Announces Second Annual Festival of Walking and Talking" New York Times 5/26/15 "Artists lead participatory walks at deCordova" Boston Globe 5/13/15 "Best Art Walk New York 2014" Village Voice 10/15/14 "Putting One Step Forward Would Be Too Obvious--Elastic City Walks Festival Has Its Inaugural Run" New York Times 10/9/14 "Elastic City Walks Turn Participants Into Artists" ARTPHAIRE 10/9/14 "How Proust Would Explore the West Village" Hyperallergic 10/8/14 "Elastic City Walks Festival: Walking as Performance Art" New York Theater 10/7/14 "Elastic City participatory walks help New Yorkers navigate familiar streets in a new way" Metro NY 9/30/14 "Find the Poetry in Walking the City" The Brian Lehrer Show; WNYC 9/26/14 "These Walks are Elastic & fantastic" New York Daily News 9/25/14 "Walk the Walk" Village Voice 9/24/14 "Great first-date ideas for New Yorkers." Time Out NY 8/18/14 "Elastic City [is] an organization that since 2010 has engaged artists in various disciplines to lead walks that are less about sightseeing than about finding fresh ways to think about a city’s history, architecture and traditions..." New York Times 8/7/14 "On Shapelessness." Leah Falk describes her experience on "Full Transparency" with Todd Shalom. Michigan Quarterly Review 7/22/14 "The Self is Multiple." Ryan Tracy offers his thoughts on "Selfies" by Todd Shalom & Niegel Smith from Prelude 2013. Culturebot 10/28/13 "Les promenades élastiques de Todd Shalom revisitent le Mile-End." Le Devoir (Montreal) 9/27/13 "luciana achugar had us close [our eyes] and tune in to our own architecture, our bodies, before we made our way along the carpeted corridors of power on hands and knees – a blind, furless herd. We did not care that we looked insane. She had made us instant converts to the senses." Financial Times 7/12/13 "[Michelle] Boulé and [Niegel] Smith designed a powerful, yet simple, walk to encourage the art of engaged observation. The experience was a welcome antidote to passive gallery wandering." The Dance Enthusiast 6/12/13 Nice article on our first-ever benefit. Artinfo 5/24/13 "Admission [by Michelle Boulé & Niegel Smith] not only challenged how we would traditionally engage with a museum, it also underlined the personalities of the group in ways I don’t think any of us often show." Untapped Cities 5/17/13 Miguel Gutierrez's "Sensewalk #1" has been selected as a favorite of the year by Jillian Steinhauer. "It may sound like a glorified version of summer camp, and maybe it was, but it also opened me up in a way that nothing else has since — I guess summer camp." Hyperallergic 12/31/12 Hillary Miller interviews Niegel Smith and Todd Shalom about "Total Detroit" for the academic journal, Radical History Review Fall 2012 "...it was an experience of public space on a personal level." Untapped Cities 10/4/12 Great piece on Lynn Marie Kirby & Alexis Petty's "Laguna Yellow" and "The 24th Street Listening Project" from KQED 9/18/12 Jon Cotner's Island Night reviewed in The New York Times 9/7/12 "It’s a little earnest and a little kooky, and yes, you might feel silly in a dark tunnel, making sounds with strangers. But on a beautiful summer evening, there’s a poet in all of us." The New York Post 8/23/12 Click here to read about SMASH TYPE by Ben Weber in the Staten Island Advance 8/12/12 "I spent a wonderful evening that not only unleashed the inner film-maker in me, but made me see Paris with fresh eyes. Elastic City’s walks build communities between people who have never met before, and Andres’ inspired story transplanted fiction firmly, and in the flesh, in to the real world." France 24 7/26/12 "Jon, are you insane?" The Hairpin talks with Jon Cotner about Island Night. 7/24/12 See this interview with Jon Cotner about his walk, Island Night. Out Magazine 7/23/12 "What Does a Doorknob Smell Like?" L Magazine 7/13/12 Here's a great article on where we are today as an organization. Capital New York (now Politico) 6/21/12 A nice write-up of Miguel Gutierrez's Sensewalk #1. Brooklyn Daily Eagle 6/7/12 "Sight, sound, taste, touch and smell—that's merely the domain of sensual rookies. New Yorkers who want to expand their experiential capacities might consider taking part in one of Miguel Gutierrez's guided Sensewalks." The Wall Street Journal 5/13/12 "Artists Todd Shalom and Niegel Smith conduct small groups of people around the grounds of the Abrons Art Center, training everyone's attention, with a gentle and inviting playfulness, on the smallest and most quotidian details imaginable — with low-key but delighting results." San Francisco Bay Guardian 1/17/12 Cartoonist Roz Chast draws her experience from Andrea Polli's "City Island Hop". The New Yorker 9/19/11 Todd Shalom speaks at ISSUE Project Room as part of Tedx Fort Greene Salon. 9/18/11 Nice feature on the past, present and future of Elastic City. "Elastic City stretches perspectives on our cityscape" Downtown Express 8/24/11 Todd Shalom featured in "This Week in New York: Why I Love NYC" Time Out NY 8/16/11 Chiara Bernasconi's "We and Our Shaaadows" reviewed in the City Room blog. New York Times 7/7/11 "Ultimately our walk, which ended at the cinematic Brooklyn Heights Promenade at sunset, generated a few of those chance meetings that make New York feel so magical at times." Brooklyn Based 6/21/11 Todd Shalom profiled in "What's Next Now." Next Magazine 6/17/11 "The point of the Spontaneous Society walks, Jon Cotner explained, is to restore a basic social spontaneity that he thinks has been lost (especially since the advent of headphones and cellphones). The 'gentle interventions' we’d be performing would connect us with our fellow New Yorkers, and help us to slow down: 'If we engage daily life in the right way, it’s more than we could ever desire,' he said. 'There is plenty to marvel at and engage with.'" The New Yorker 6/14/11 "Today, Jon Cotner had given us each two simple lines to repeat to strangers that were intended—through this spontaneous commenting—to generate 'good vibes' with the people around us and also render us more aware of our environment....Members of the tour got smiles, friendly conversation, and even compliments from people they hadn’t approached. People in the group noted how they felt more 'open' to other people after the experience, and how they were surprised by how often their statements were met with smiles or laughter." Bookforum 6/10/11 Cualquier voluntad de llevarlo al escenario sería como hacer un cover? Recorridos poéticos en Buenos Aires Teatro Independiente La Plata Argentina 11/21/10 "These experiences are rare for being educational, interactive and personal. The artists often encourage moments of introspection and even vulnerability among participants, who may be asked to walk with eyes closed, make the sound of an inanimate object or trace the wall of a building with one’s hands. That such behaviour sounds regressive may be part of its appeal. With the right motivation, it can be satisfying to flout conventional codes of behaviour out in the open." The Economist 10/6/10 "In Brighton Beach Mr. Shalom asked us to pair off, one of us leading the other, whose eyes were closed, down the street. My first reaction: No way! But I closed my eyes, and this listening exercise became an experience of time. It stretched, and I felt suspended. When I opened my eyes, I was oddly exhilarated." New York Times 9/9/10 "My no-holds-barred favourite is the groovy tour called "Elastic City," the one whose antics I mentioned at the top of this piece. Our group also engaged in such odd, but compelling and darn fun, exercises such as walking the streets with our eyes closed (a partner's directions kept us from stumbling into traffic) and etching group poetry in the sand of the beach." Toronto Star 8/25/10 "Through each artist's individual frame, the city morphs into a new, unfamiliar, and fascinating terrain." Brooklyn (The Borough) 8/11/10 "Remaining silent turns on all the other senses. Colors come into sharp focus. Smells intensify. We become acutely aware of the squeals of the elevated subways in the distance, which give off an industrial-musical note." WNYC video feature 8/9/10 "A guide, a leader, a teacher, but above all an artist, Todd melts into the background of the walks, allowing the participants to use the practical and poetic awareness he gives them to open up to the city in a completely new way." Gothamist 8/9/10 Neil Freeman and Todd Shalom discuss walking through the city as a medium of art, poetics and urban awareness. Urban Omnibus 7/28/10 "Would I recommend it to visitors to New York City? Absolutely. If you can be open to the experience, I think you'll gain a lot of insights not just about the area you're visiting, but also about yourself." Pauline Frommer, Frommer's travel writer 7/23/10 "I chose Todd Shalom, Elastic City's founder, as my companion. I knew he wouldn't let anything happen to me. He wanted publicity." Wall Street Journal 7/23/10 "Hidden City: WNYC Wanders Through Brighton Beach." WNYC radio broadcast 7/16/10 "In a performance world where offensive behavior often seems rote, it’s refreshing to see people filling spaces with productive and energizing ideas." Brooklyn Rail July/August 2010 ::::::::::::: Here's some more press. Press about a walk is also featured on that walk's unique page. ::::::::::::: "'Art Walks' Deconstructed" New York Times 9/25/14 "Elastic City walks are weird, wonderful affairs that generally require an open mind and an abandonment of self-consciousness or ironic distance." Hyperallergic 6/25/13 "...rest assured the walk will be one of the most enjoyable $20 experiences you have in this town." Brooklyn Based. 8/22/12 "[Elastic City] offers unprecedented views of the Big Apple, one inspiring step at a time." PureWow 9/1/11 "You have to be open to an adventure if you join conceptual walking-tour planners Elastic City on one of their rambles." Time Out NY 7/12/11 "Elastic City walking tours take a different look at New York. Instead of history, food or architecture, the company gives what it describes as 'sensory, ritualistic' and 'conceptual' walks. Poet Jon Cotner guides a tour of 'Spontaneous Society', a chance to break down the walls of anonymity with a few simple lines of dialogue." New York Times 6/3/11 Elastic City featured in "The Summer 100: Outdoor Music & Art" City Arts 6/14/11 "Elastic City’s artist-led jaunts aren’t about famous locations or people; rather, each walk is designed to help New Yorkers make an emotional connection with the places they pass every day and to heighten their awareness of the city around them." Time Out NY 8/11/10 "By the end, you'll likely never hear the city the same way again." Village Voice 7/28/10 "The city as we know it takes on a fresh perspective with a new series of conceptual art walks." Thirteen/WNET Sunday Arts 6/13/10 "Elastic City organizes walks around New York that provide novel and quirky experiences of this much-toured city." Artslant 5/23/10 "Artist-Led Walking Tours Debut" New York Press 4/30/10 "Hear Brooklyn in New Ways..." Brokelyn 4/29/10 ::::::::::::: Newsletters ::::::::::::: Click on these links to download PDFs of some of our fave Elastic City email newsletters: 2010 2011 2011 (donate) 2012 2012 (thanks) 2013 (benefit) 2013 (donate) 2014 2015 2015 (special) 2016 2016 (thanks)