Opening November 7: MASSIVE URBAN CHANGE
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| Eliza Gregory and Nicole Lavelle's Massive Urban Change will create a space for nuanced dialogue about neighborhood evolution in the Mission District. |
MASSIVE URBAN CHANGE
November 7-December 14, 2014
Opening Reception: Friday, November 7, 6-8:30PM RSVP
Closing Reception: Sunday, December 14, 1-5:00PM
Gallery Hours: Saturday–Wednesday, 12-5:00PM
Closed: November 22-30
This November we invite a closer look at the changing Mission with our exhibition, Massive Urban Change. The five-week project, a collaboration of artists Eliza Gregory and Nicole Lavelle, creates a space for nuanced dialogue about neighborhood evolution amidst the polarized debates currently surrounding San Francisco's Mission District.
Composed of visual, sculptural and conversational components, Massive Urban Change zooms in and zooms out on the controversies by calling attention to historical context while also prioritizing individual experiences within the neighborhood.
The installation begins with a photograph of Mission Street between 15th and 30th Streets. With a nod to Ed Ruscha’s Sunset Strip, this panoramic series will snake around the gallery walls and provide the first layer of what will become a collaged, narrative map of neighborhood evolution, hope, frustration and reinvention.
Open Saturdays through Wednesdays from 12–5:00PM, the gallery will host visitors as both audience members and participants. The artists will conduct interviews, do online and historical research, and take suggestions from audience members for how to build out the this 3D map of changes. At the exhibition opening, visitors will begin the mapping process by speaking to other guests about neighborhood identity, history, pride, distress and hopes for the future.
Additional Components
Lavelle and Gregory are creating a series of graphic postcards for purchase that illuminate the role that the language of commerce plays in forming and representing place-based identity. Each postcard features one or more graphic renderings of business signage from Mission Street, taken from original photographs. The sale of these cards will help fund the project and act as an entry point for conversation around familiar landmarks.
Lavelle and Gregory are creating a series of graphic postcards for purchase that illuminate the role that the language of commerce plays in forming and representing place-based identity. Each postcard features one or more graphic renderings of business signage from Mission Street, taken from original photographs. The sale of these cards will help fund the project and act as an entry point for conversation around familiar landmarks.
Two custom made benches, part of Daniel Garcia’s Switch series, will run down the center of the gallery. These benches subtly encourage conversation by physically suggesting that people sit facing opposite directions: the contours of each bench switch two-thirds of the way along. Made from baltic birch and fixed to welded plate steel legs, the Switch benches reinforce the values of dialogue and community-building that underscore Massive Urban Change.