REWIND

 

Rewind is an installation I created to transform the iconic public space of the World Trade Center and the Oculus into a surreal stage of reflective play—one where oversized childhood toys confront the scale and symbolism of adulthood. It’s an uncanny ensemble that blurs the line between memory and monument.

Through this work, I merge personal nostalgia with the identity of a city that never sleeps. These figures, enlarged to architectural proportions, become more than whimsical ornaments; they are meditations on innocence, resilience, and the surreal passage of time. The robot’s mirrored eyes subtly reflect the urban skyline, implicating the viewer in the work and collapsing the boundary between the imagined and the real.

Set against the structural solemnity of Lower Manhattan, Rewind creates a space where wonder and weight coexist. I invite viewers to reconsider the symbols of our youth—not as sentimental relics, but as enduring components of who we become.

Each piece holds a story, rooted in a specific moment or memory from my life in New York.

Here, nostalgia is not a retreat, but a reckoning:
a chance to examine the cultural artifacts that shaped us and ask how they continue to echo within the adult world we now inhabit.

Rewind is more than a playful interruption of the everyday—it’s a bold reinterpretation of public space as an emotional archive, where the toys of childhood stand as towering icons of identity, joy, and the ongoing process of becoming.