Arts: Billboards to ‘Artboards’
The “Artboards” are a creative repurposing of two sets of existing double-sided billboards located atop a historic building in the Crossroads District. While billboards are typically considered blighting elements, to be removed in the course of reinvestment and renovation, in this case the billboards were embraced as evidence of the history of the area as a gritty, urban neighborhood, and were seized upon as readymade structures for publicly broadcasting the current nature of this neighborhood as a home and hub for artists and creative activity.
Working with Art through Architecture, a program designed to encourage collecting and commissioning of work by local artists as part of new architectural projects, the architect designed improvements to the billboards in order to transform them into ideal outdoor frames for displaying commissioned artworks, produced as large-scale digital prints on ECO-flex, a new “green” billboard material. A new set of “Artboards” debut every four months, with each selected artist creating two images, displayed side by side. This project both provides a highly visible (and highly coveted) exhibition space for local artists to display new work, and acts as a changing signage system of sorts that continually re-activates and re-contextualizes the building , while always connecting it to the arts district of which it is a part.
