Urban Art Gallery

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I've walked by City Hall numerous times and have even given tours of the area, but I have never noticed the urban art gallery right across the street, painted on the construction perimeter fence of a vacant excavation. When I first noticed it, I just assumed it was random street art consisting of abstract murals. After some research, it turns out that it is part of a larger project to introduce art and empower at risk youth by a local non-profit organization, Urban Art Works (urbanartworks.org). Over time, these community art works become palimpsests of improvised additions and transformations of the existing project as graffiti, stickers, and even organisms like fungi take over the gallery, making it interactive with the public, and more dynamic than a traditional art installation. What also makes the installation interesting is the juxtaposition to the post-modern landscape it inhabits: a billboard advertisement for VW is hung on the adjacent lot. The people that have been marginalized by poor planning decisions over the years are the very ones that are being empowered to create something amidst the homogenization and incorporation of our cities.