An interactive zoetrope that projects a galloping horse featuring the rider's own shadow.

A Dream of Pastures is an interactive mechanical sculpture and light projection. A large machine, built around six powerful lightbulbs and a system of rotating apertures, projects the familiar image of Eadweard Muybridge’s horse studies on a large wall in the exhibition space. Just in front of the wood and brass projection machine, a stationary bicycle invites investigation from the viewer.

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As the viewer pedals the bicycle, they power the system of projecting lights and turning gears in the projection device, and discover that the phantom horse becomes animated. As the viewer pedals more vigorously, the gears rotate at a quicker rate, and the horse breaks into a gallop. Sitting in the saddle, the viewer’s own shadow aligns with the horse, casting them as a jockey in the projected world. Interacting with the sculpture, the viewer gallops through the empty pastures of a fictitious landscape of light and shadow.

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The project was first exhibited as part of the City of Toronto’s 2008 Nuit Blanche Festival, and later exhibited in the Corcoran Gallery's Muybridge retrospective. A Dream of Pastures was the first collaboration between Brad Hindson and Mitchell F Chan.