Prayer Booths

Dylan Mortimer, a Kansas City artist, has received money from New York’s Arts in the Park program to build two public prayer booths in the Big Apple. The booths sport pictures of folded hands on either side and a flip-down kneeling pad. The idea, according to Mortimer, is to “start a discussion about prayer” in NYC. While fostering prayer discussion might be a noble goal, it seems more likely that these booths will instead foment discussion about how easy it is to take someone’s wallet while he’s kneeling. Or they might stir the pot of conversation about whether that smelly, sticky substance on the kneeling pad is urine or semen. Or they might encourage New Yorkers to pray that these booths aren’t in their way while they’re trying to get to goddamn work. More details here.