World Day of Remembrance · November 15, 2026

The Distance From Here

Michael James Freedman

Four oil paintings, selected data and map prints, and an interactive map bring the human cost of New York City’s traffic crashes into the gallery.

Artist’s talk & memorial walk · Sunday, November 15 at noon
Meet at Littlefield, 635 Sackett Street, Brooklyn.

Talk & walk details The paintings Data prints Map prints Cubes & T-shirts

Oblique installation visualization: four original paintings, a tall New York City map, and four projected images on a gallery wall, with a standing figure showing the scale. — The Distance From Here — installation visualization.

Artist’s talk & memorial walk · November 15 at noon

Littlefield · 635 Sackett Street

Produced by Why Not Art

The exhibition

The distance is measured in feet.
The loss reaches much further.

The Distance From Here begins close to Littlefield: four oil paintings connected to fatal traffic crashes in the surrounding neighborhood. Each title measures the distance from the gallery to the site of the crash.

A projected map extends the work across New York City. Visitors point to a location, and four images connected to the closest crashes emerge. The place they choose becomes another “here.”

Moving between painting, public data, and generated imagery, Freedman transforms raw data into narrative, exposing the emotionally brutal truth concealed within the dry traffic statistics of NYC streets.

The original works

Four paintings.
Four lives.

Each work is oil on linen, 18 × 18 inches. The titles measure the straight-line distance from Littlefield to the crash location.

01 / 04

258 Feet from Here

Victor Hidalgo

Oil on linen · 18 × 18 inches

Victor Hidalgo was 24, a delivery worker who had moved from Mexico to New York the previous year. He helped support his young son in Mexico. An FDNY pickup driver fatally struck him at Fourth Avenue and Sackett Street. His aunt remembered his kindness and playfulness.

Crash date · October 30, 2024

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02 / 04

1,104 Feet from Here

Arcellie Marina “Cellie” Muschamp

Oil on linen · 18 × 18 inches

Arcellie Marina “Cellie” Muschamp was a mother of two and a longtime Park Slope caregiver. At Fifth Avenue and Union Street, she pushed a child’s stroller out of the path of a turning pickup. The driver struck her; the child survived. Cellie died eleven days later. She was 52.

Crash date · December 20, 2021

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03 / 04

1,924 Feet from Here

Carolyn Cox

Oil on linen · 18 × 18 inches

Carolyn Cox was 83. A neighbor remembered her greeting people and crossing the street to get food. At Bond and Butler Streets, a turning truck driver stopped to let her cross, then moved again before she had reached the other side. The crash site is 1,924 feet from Littlefield.

Crash date · June 26, 2024

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04 / 04

3,504 Feet from Here

Arturo Alberto Baez Cordero

Oil on linen · 18 × 18 inches

Arturo Alberto Baez Cordero was a Dominican filmmaker, editor, and director. He spoke of continuing his family’s filmmaking and environmental legacy. He was 34 when another driver struck his car at Second Avenue and Ninth Street. Arturo died after being taken to the hospital.

Crash date · September 14, 2025

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Selected works on paper

Data prints.

Selected by Michael James Freedman from roughly 1,200 images shaped by his four oil paintings and New York City crash data. Each is a unique 17 × 17-inch giclée on Hahnemühle German Etching paper, printed once as a 1/1.

Square artwork with a silver car on the left, red and orange strokes across its front, blue-gray street forms, and a tall white reserve beside a curb on the right.

Rockaway Beach Boulevard & Beach 108th Street, Queens

$500 framed · Unique print · 1/1

Square artwork with a large bicycle wheel at upper right, a diagonal silver vehicle grille below, and a dense red-orange knot over layered blue, ochre and rust color fields.