Med City Beat is a Rochester-based news project rooted in fairness, transparency and civic responsibility.

Est. 2014

Off the wall: A giant red ball is coming to downtown Rochester

Off the wall: A giant red ball is coming to downtown Rochester

(THE MED CITY BEAT) - If you see a giant wrecking ball in downtown Rochester this spring, you can most likely thank DMC.

But if you spot a 15-foot-tall red ball wedged between two buildings, you can thank New York artist Kurt Perschke.

The Rochester Downtown Alliance announced on Thursday that Perschke will bring his world-traveled RedBall Project to the Med City from June 6-12. During its time here, the ball will be placed at seven different sites in the city.

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"RedBall Project Rochester will offer the community an opportunity to engage with a piece of public art in a unique way," said Jenna Bowman, the executive director of RDA." [This] is completely different than anything the organization has done before."

The exact locations will remain a secret until next month. Perschke traveled to Rochester last fall to select the sites — something he always does before bringing the 250-pound ball to a new city.

The magnetic, playful, and charismatic nature of RedBall allows the work 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?
— Kurt Perschke

In hosting the RedBall project, Rochester joins some elite company. Since 2001, Perschke has only held the exhibit in about two dozen cities, including Chicago, Toronto, Paris, Abu Dhabi and Sydney.

You can see the red ball on display in cities across the world on the project's YouTube channel.


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(Cover photo: Abu Dhabi / RedBall Project)

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