Purchase Design Students Take Over Empty Store Windows in White Plains
Starting Nov. 26, Small Business Saturday, design students at Purchase College, SUNY’s School of the Arts will once again collaborate with the White Plains BID (Business Improvement District) to exhibit Art in Vacant Spaces, an art project utilizing empty storefronts across downtown White Plains.
The project was initially launched last year to improve the visual appearance of several vacant storefronts, thereby enhancing the overall ambiance and pedestrian experience in the downtown.
Again this year, Graphic Design Professor Warren Lehrer worked with his Community Design class to populate the storefronts with visual poetry as part of the students’ pro-bono work for the semester. The School of the Arts hired poet Judith Sloan to research and interview people in White Plains, and to write site-specific poems for the project that represent the hopes, desires, memories, and soul of people working and, or living in White Plains, leaving room for evocative interpretations by student designers. The students then visualized the poems using design elements and tools including typography, color, shape, photography, animation, projections, and dye cuts.
This year, the Art in Vacant Spaces project will feature 10 works. It will also include video projections and animation for the first time.
The project will have a dramatic impact on the corner of East Post Road and South Broadway. All of the artwork will be installed in one property that has 50 plus windows and doorways spanning this corner of the downtown.
Brittany Brandwein, the Director of Events and Business Promotions for the White Plains BID and the project manager said, “We had the opportunity this year to create a stimulating art wall along East Post Road and South Broadway that will be both captivating and transformative. It will be a showcase for how creativity, ingenuity, and passion can transform an empty space into a place that inspires and connects our downtown residents and workers to each other and the city. This year we have incorporated the free downloadable app Otocast into the project that will give viewers detailed information about each piece, as well as four pieces from last year’s project that are still on display. The art will be on view until the individual stores are rented.”
Student designers include Gunnar Artin, Alexander Beach, Danielle Foti, Melissa Murillo, Paige Nehlsen, Emily Seto, Julianne Waber, Ashley Yalaju, and Sarah Yalaju.
