the challenge

While working as a creative strategist for WS Development, a real estate development company transitioning from a retail-heavy tradition to devising more people-focused and more experience-driven strategies, I promoted the idea of activating places by learning from how successful museums are run: they curate tasteful content and provide experiences that can only be achieved by being in the physical space, serving a great variety of audiences. Why can’t time spent in retail spaces be more meaningful than what it already is? Well curated retail spaces should be authentic, inspiring, unique, mind-opening, educational, and nostalgic—a great place on its own.

Experiences at such places should also include traditional services that exist in all communities as well as new, unique encounters. To accomplish this, I initiated and followed through a series of small projects.

Projects

• Quarks

Surrounding an organic array of fixtures including light poles and benches, or nestling within the negative spaces of the trees, I worked with artists Claudia Ravaschiere and Michael Moss from Boston’s historic Fort Point to carefully place “Quarks” around Seaport, the new neighborhood next to Fort Point. 

Vibrant orange, blue, yellow, purple, and pink colors clustered into configurations that echo the forms of molecules and challenge the viewer’s perception of the environment, creating an unexpected burst of color and shape. Quarks brought an element of mystery and a chance for viewers to encounter with public art that spoke to innovation and scientific community growing and flourishing in the Seaport.

• Light Up Seaport

In 2016 and 2017, I worked with the Seaport team to create the first two annual event of the neighborhood’s first Holiday Tree Lighting event: Light Up Seaport. In 2018, concurrent to the third recurrence of the event, I worked with a local photographer, George Vasquez, to create A Year in Seaport, a photography exhibit in celebration of the neighborhood. This program highlighted powerful visuals captured across the community in the previous 365 days.

• BiblioCycle

As the neighborhood did not have a public library branch, in the process to create “Free Little Libraries“ around the area, I worked with Boston Public Library to host a series of Bibliocycle visit in Seaport. Bibliocycle is Boston Public Library’s bike-powered outreach service, using bikes and a book trailer to set up mobile libraries throughout the city.

• Seaport Common Art Series

In 2016, I worked with the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston embarking on a new public project: Seaport Common Art Series. The series featured representations of works from the ICA’s nationally-acclaimed exhibitions and collection. This year-long collaboration brought representations of the ICA’s work out of the gallery and into public spaces, resulting in a juxtaposition of thought-provoking works set against the backdrop of everyday life.

One installment was inspired by the works of Geoffrey Farmer and his collaboration with the designer Chad Kloepfer to create new works inspired by the process of color printing. The result was a series of vibrant images, broken down to reveal the individual colors embedded within Farmer’s work. Industrial chain link fencing served as an inventive backdrop for the bold imagery, creating an unlikely, yet delightful, pairing of utility and artistry. Another rotation was drawn from the ICA’s exhibition of Nari Ward’s works: Sun Splashed. This exhibition utilized varied, unlikely materials and media to create ambitiously scaled artworks. Sun Splashed explored a broad range of themes including African-American history and the dynamics of power and politics.

This dynamic series highlighted the visceral connection between community, artistry, and the often-overlooked details of our daily surroundings.