To record this episode, we headed to
Frieze New York 's tented art fair on
Randall's Island. We were looking for Japanese artist
Koki Tanaka to learn more about his interest in the island’s invisible communities. An array of picnic tables from a nearby park defined the space where Koki told a different Randall’s Island story each day, introducing communities and histories that lay outside the art fair’s reality.
Our Fresh Talk includes voices—Koki Tanaki and local firefighter Michael Gallo, and music—a vintage recording of Count Basie and his band playing at the Carnival of Swing that took place on Randall's Island in 1938, and a song recorded just last week with whistling sax0phonist Bill Todd!