Joshua Ashish Dawson Screens Bradbaori on Sunset Billboard
The short film, which recasts the Bradbury Building as a stepwell, plays hourly on a billboard in West Hollywood.
- When
- Through Jan. 31, 2027 (top of every hour)
- Where
- The Now billboard, 8497 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood
Bradbaori: Invocation is a short film by the Los Angeles artist Joshua Ashish Dawson, showing on the digital billboard at 8497 Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood as part of the city's Moving Image Media Art program. It plays at the top of every hour through Jan. 31, 2027.
Bradbaori: Invocation on the billboard at 8497 Sunset Boulevard. Video: Joshua Ashish Dawson
The title joins the Bradbury Building, the downtown Los Angeles landmark familiar from decades of film and television, with the baori, the stepwells of South Asia built to collect and store water. The film is set in a near-future Los Angeles that has gone 516 days without rain. The Bradbury's central atrium has been converted into a vertical water commons. As storm clouds arrive, the building's stewards gather to perform a choreographed ritual that receives the water. Three keepers, named for water, earth and fire, dance to wake the filtration trays, the energy core and the skylight.
The cast is Roshni Shukla, Reshma Gajjar, Cal Brady and Malachi Durant. Dawson's site lists the film at eight minutes and describes a companion worldbuilding installation. Dawson announced the run on Sept. 26 and credited NEW INC, Future of Film and Climate House with support.
Dawson trained in architecture at the University of Southern California and is in NEW INC's Extended Realities track this year.
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