All are invited to jump the Harbor Hopscotch from now through the end of summer! Harbor Hopscotch is a 103’ long, colorful hopscotch court playfully activating a ramp entrance to West Shore Park at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. The temporary installation of teal, electric blue, and fuchsia colored spray chalk was commissioned by the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore to bring more people into the south end of this prominent public space. Pedestrians strolling on the Inner Harbor Promenade are met with a large project ground graphic inviting them to hop up the ramp leading into West Shore Park. The graphic also encourages participants to share pictures of each other jumping using the hashtag #HarborHopscotch and @waterfrontpartnership.
HopXscotch Rivalry: A cross-hopping, street race for two!
HopXcotch Rivalry will be two extreme hopscotch courses crossing for one action packed, two person race. Inspired by the success of my Hopscotch Crosswalks in downtown Baltimore, I’m staging this new project to bring playful pedestrian action to the intersection of Charles and Lanvale Streets, in the middle of Artscape’s Field Day, coming up on July 18-20. Participants will start at competing ends of hopscotch paths and must jump fast while staying on track. The two 50’ long courses meet at the middle, presenting an opportunity for racers to bump each other off course. The easy-to-understand and play game will be enhanced with organized hopscotch tournaments at scheduled times throughout the Artscape weekend.
FIELD DAY is a collection of participatory games, activities, performances and competitions designed by artists, which will be free and open to the public during the 2014 Artscape. Seven installations will be featured along the Charles Street corridor; visitors to Artscape will be able to experience each “station” as simply a viewer or by competing against friends, the artist-organizer or gaining a “high score.”
Curated by: Michael Benevento, Jason Corace and Andrew Liang.
FIELD DAY is a program of the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts, Inc. (BOPA).
A cold winter of public art proposal writing means a hot summer of playful urban exploration! I am honored to announce that I am an inaugural recipient of a Rubys Artist Project Grant for my forthcoming participatory video tour series, SiteLines. In addition, I will be staging HopXcotch Rivalry as part of the Field Day program at the Artscape festival in Baltimore this July.
Situated within the invisible sites and overlooked features of our everyday urban environment, my ongoing New Public Sites project tests the boundaries of pedestrian agency, interprets the overlooked and banal, and investigates the negotiable nature of public space. SiteLines will be a translation of my radical walking tours and urban design research into sharable videos and a gallery installation. Feature dramatic shots of public space and pedestrian interactions therein, the videos will present a compelling portrait of Baltimore and its civic space potential. The entire SiteLines season will be be released on the New Public Sites YouTube channel on a periodic basis, then shown at a Baltimore gallery alongside “non-site” sculptures of found materials, an immersive map installation and large posters of poetic New Public Sites nomenclature. As a season of social video and multimedia installation, SiteLines will show local and online audiences how a practice of radical pedestrianism can reinvent invisible public space.
HopXscotch Rivalry: A cross-hopping, street race for two!
HopXcotch Rivalry will be two extreme hopscotch courses crossing for one action packed, two person race. Inspired by the success of my Hopscotch Crosswalks in downtown Baltimore, I’m staging this new project to bring playful pedestrian action to the middle of Artscape’s Field Day programing along Charles Street. Participants will start at competing ends of the yellow and teal hopscotch paths and must jump fast while staying on track. The two 50’ long courses meet at the middle, presenting an opportunity for racers to bump each other of course. The easy-to-understand and play game will be enhanced with organized hopscotch tournaments at scheduled times throughout the Artscape weekend.
Construction of the Hopscotch Crosswalk Colossus at the corner of Eutaw and Lombard Streets in downtown Baltimore is now complete. As the public continues to show their excitement in person and online, I thought I would share a few initial shots and a little background on the project. My project is one of three sets of artist-designed crosswalks made possible by Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts for the Bromo Seltzer Arts & Entertainment District. To the BOPA open call, I responded with the following proposal:
The Monumental City is played by giants among many – the business person, the bird, the worker and you. Hopscotch Crosswalk Colossus is an intersection of four oversized hopscotch-court-crosswalks, each featuring a quintessential Baltimore path-print. Featuring the shoe, the bird track, the boot and the footprint, the project is a monument to the people who populate the Bromo Tower Arts & Entertainment District and make Baltimore The Greatest City in America.
North Side: The Shoe – The Towering Businessperson skips east approaching downtown skyscrapers. East Side: The Bird Track – The Superbird Champion hops south heading to Camden Yards and The Raven’s Walk. South Side: The Boot – Wobbling west The Worker passes through a former garment district built by labor. West Side: The Footprint – The Hippie Artist bounces north with abandon towards lofty digs in the Bromo Tower Arts & Entertainment District.
