Walk

Walk (2016)

A ready-made bench stacked with what appear to be shoe boxes containing designer shoes are revealed instead to contain a set of large, wrinkled and torn photographs printed on poster-sized papers taken of homeless encampments.

The photographs of scenes beneath the freeway across from art galleries and an auction house, behind the Designer Showcase Center and Restoration Hardware’s flagship shore, and near AirBNB’s corporate headquarters, located between the SOMA and Potrero Hill Districts in San Francisco were taken during the period leading up to the Super Bowl, when the San Francisco Police Department was tasked with clearing the streets and sidewalks of homeless encampments, presumably so that the throngs of visitors and tourists who flock to The City for the football game would not see the extent of the homeless population living in squalor under the freeway.

Intended to bring awareness of the dire situation to people who may be unaware, once puzzled together, the individual photo prints reveal the statement "Walk in the shoes of those who have little or nothing; SFPD Police Line Do Not Cross."

Type

A life-size participatory diorama picture book as 1 bench, 6 boxes and 12 photographs with text. Docents encourage visitors to sit on the bench, open the boxes, unfurl the papers to reveal the photographs and place them on the floor, and arrange them in order to decipher the puzzle.

Venue

w[o]rdrobe (solo exhibition) :: Sebastopol Center for the Arts, Sebastopol, CA

Black & White & Shades of Grey :: O'Hanlon Center for the Arts, Mill Valley, CA

Dates

July 29 thru September 4, 2016 (Sebastopol Center for the Arts )

October 27 thru November 17, 2016 (O'Hanlon Center for the Arts)

Thank You

Serena Hazard, Jane Van Loon, Catherine Devrise and the docents of Sebastopol Center for the Arts