Meet the Artist—The Great Hall Commission: Jacolby Satterwhite, A Metta Prayer | Met Exhibitions

[Music] brothers and sisters we are gathered here today to celebrate life in my work I am not an identity I am a font for an essay that moves abstractly and through the animation may we always be visible because in this world they would rather see us disappear [Music] when the Met approached me I was very

excited the traffic of the Great Hall is around 3 to 4 million people a year and so I thought if I could capture people for a moment what would I do I had access to build a psychic space that could create a potential new Zeitgeist idea something that ush in the New Freedom and

collectiveness but then I was so scared because I don't think a body like mine would ever think of having such a prominent role of being one of the first artists to do an exhibition of this tight in that space I come from Columbia South Carolina when I first saw New York I was

18 on a field trip to the Met to draw all the objects I felt like a elephant stepped on my chest from a Sublime experience the Met still Shak even when I was granted the commission it became much bigger because I had to actually do something in it that pressure led me to really hone

in all my Wellness practices I took a transcendental meditation course in Brooklyn and then one day I achieved such a crazy Transcendent space that I started seeing text one of the text that kept appearing was meta and I thought it was just me being stupid and thinking about Facebook or the ter term meta or like meta

narrative or the met so I just Googled it I saw the history of meta which is an ancient Buddhist mantra for the loving kindness prayer the prayer starts with may I may you may your or may we basically affirming anything that is something you want to make your actual reality in the space that is in front of