I write on the sky as an invitation to imagine a better world. Writing on the sky transforms the usually private act of reading into one that is collective. My message is a call to reckon with the dangers we face, both as citizens whose basic rights are on the line and as inhabitants of a planet threatened by man-made disasters. These problems may seem insurmountable. Fear can be paralyzing. Fatalism can convince us that no change is possible. We must draw on our inner strength and our sense of connection to others in order to see and act differently.

This project extends my long-standing interest in writing as a form of mark-making. For my performance Votos (2000) I wrote biblical phrases about the emotional effects of thought on walls. In my 2017 performance, Words May Not Be Found, I retrieved the testimony of survivors of the 1904 Nambian Genocide and staged a choral reading of them in Germany as a living memorial to the victims. In my 2016 installation, Confidential: Autores Firmantes, I created facsimiles of classified Cuban government correspondence authorizing the censorship of dozens of authors who supported the persecuted Cuban poet Heberto Padilla.

Print culture may be on the wane, but words remain present nearly everywhere we look. I embrace the power of language to create images in our minds.

—Coco Fusco