Sunset Corridor
PHILADELPHIA, 2022
With support from the Added Velocity Fund and in collaboration with Mural Arts Education and artist Michael Konrad, we worked on a 6 week summer program with Philadelphia-based students. We led activities and creative experiences and reflected on light, public space and the participants’ role in creating places for the community. Together, we worked to enact change to the neighborhood and its underused and unsafe public corridor through a long term light installation.
What for?
More than half of Philadelphia residents do not feel safe in their neighborhoods at night. People prefer staying at home, which empties the streets and creates a favorable environment for crime.
To improve this reality we worked with young people in Philadelphia to activate a public space that is impassable at night due to insecurity. These young people were participants in Mural Arts' summer arts and education program.
Where?
The Mt Vernon Street corridor, which is normally perceived as unsafe and unusable at night, was selected as the ideal location to transform into a community gathering place. The 120 -meter concrete pedestrian corridor has two long fences– one adjacent to Roberto Clemente Park and the other to Laura Wheeler Waring Public School.
How?
LABORATORY:
LEARNING EXPERIENCES
The Mural Arts Education summer program shares practical experiences in artistic practice. In2022, alongside Michael Konrad, a visual artist whose practice explores the urban landscape and reused waste elements, the Alumbra team and participants met three days a week for six weeks to conduct creative explorations around artistic light, everyday materials, and both natural and artificial lighting.
COLLECTIVE
CREATION
Over the course of the program, we conducted research, site visits, created sketches and prototypes, and gathered feedback from community members. The group also co-developed a concept for our final creation.
Toward the end, we spent several days in an outdoor workshop to realize the vision of the youth participants in our artistic lighting intervention in the corridor.
What?
PLACEMAKING
The participants developed the light art installation following a Sunset-Sunrise theme. The final design was a three-sided mural that gave visibility to the pedestrian at night, and interacted with the sunlight, creating a more vibrant, thriving and safe place for the community at all hours.
Translucent PVC strips were woven through the south-facing fences. They were woven diagonally into a cyclone mesh, creating linear overlaps of color that change throughout the day with the movement of the sun.
The ground mural is a continuous strip that runs from on side of the street to the other, creating a timeline and a playful path. Sun and moon shapes were painted to create a journey that emphasizes the transitory nature of this space.
On the north-facing mesh, we installed LED neon strips to illuminate the space after sunset. Arrow shapes traced in blue and amber light point in both directions matching the bi-directional nature of the corridor and the Sunrise-Sunset floor mural.
You should be able to take a new
place and make it your own.
For the inauguration, we had an evening activation with live music and performance artists. Friends, family, neighbors and authorities were present and had fun.
Who?
Delayla (student)
When we first saw it, we were like «this place is so bare, and dry and sad» and now is like beautiful
and colorful, and the kids like it.
Neighbour
This alleyway needed a little bit of love, especially at night, when you are walking through it.
Tai (assistant teaching artist)
I thought that the idea of illuminating the space was really great, especially since at night this is a very dark space
Alana Caldwell (student)
While we were doing the work, we were having fun, so it wasn’t just an ethic project, we were putting all our creativity and our ideas.
Thanks to the youth participants:
Alana Caldwell, Alfred Safier, Camille Parker, Cavon Bennett, Clarissa Lanzas, Delayla Foxworth, Jaydin Dorman, Jozelyne Moise Vargas, Kyla Odum, Maimoonah Zaker, Marcus Miller, Stephen Smith, Washika Tanha and Violet Fraatz.
ALUMBRA is a project by Colectivo Barrio
Iniciativa Ciudadana para el Desarrollo Barrial A.C.
