Christine Sun Kim: Time Owes Me Rest Again

As soon as you walk into the Queens Museum, Christine Sun Kim's massive graphic artwork greets you, reminding you that we're all in this together. "Time Owes Me Rest Again" is a mural on the monumental 40-by-100-foot wall surrounding the Panorama of the City of New York. Each word is drawn to represent the five words in the title—"Time," "Owes," "Me," "Rest," "Again"—in American Sign Language. Each word is represented by the movement of the signing hand coming into contact with the signer's body. "These drawn notations echo and bounce off each other to render a lethargic feeling drawn from the societal and systemic inequity that persists between Deaf communities and the hearing power structures," the museum says. The meaning of the words also reflects on the fatigue people have from the pandemic. Many Queens residents near the museum (in Corona and Elmhurst specifically) are immigrants from Latin America and Asia and were among the hardest hit in 2020. There's a screen nearby that animates the words as they're meant to be felt against one's body.