The Red Ball Project

Chicago-based artist Kurt Perschke has been working for years on “The Red Ball Project,” a global photography adventure featuring some of the world’s greatest cities and a 15-foot inflatable red sphere.

The ball becomes a temporary installation, but also engages the population in a unique way. Perschke says,  

Through the RedBall Project, I utilize my opportunity as an artist to be a catalyst for new encounters within the everyday. Through the magnetic, playful, and charismatic nature of the RedBall the work is able to access the imagination embedded in all of us. On the surface, the experience seems to be about the ball itself as an object, but the true power of the project is what it can create for those who experience it. It opens a doorway to imagine what if? As RedBall travels around the world people approach me on the street with excited suggestions about where to put it in their city. In that moment the person is not a spectator but a participant in the act of imagination. I have witnessed it across continents, diverse age spans, cultures, and languages, always issuing an invitation. That invitation to engage, to collectively imagine, is the true essence of the RedBall Project. The larger arc of the project is how each city responds to that invitation and, over time, what the developing story reveals about our individual and cultural imagination.

Next up: Abu Dhabi.

Learn more, see photos, watch videos and more at The Red Ball Project.