If you haven’t already, I highly suggest you venture to downtown New Bedford to experience the site-specific installation Silver Current now hovering over Custom House Square. Conceived and created by artist Patrick Shearn and his collective team Poetic Kinetics, this temporary (July - September) artwork is breathtaking and inspiring. Fashioned from ultralight metallized film and netting and resembling schools of fish following even the slightest change in (wind) current. What immediately struck me was the sound and I found myself closing my eyes and laying back on the lawn. It was meditative and soothing, like waves hitting the beach.

The larger story of this work is that it’s the inaugural event of DATMA, the Massachusetts Design Art and Technology Institute, a “museum without walls” that takes it’s inspiration from Mass MoCA in North Adams, MA. I am looking forward to more contemporary art presence in New Bedford and the cultural renaissance that it hopefully portends.