Purchase College and White Plains BID Collaborate on Public Art

December 6, 2018. For the fourth year in a row, Purchase College, SUNY’s School of the Arts has collaborated with the White Plains BID (Business Improvement District) to exhibit Art in Vacant Spaces, an innovative art project in empty storefronts in downtown White Plains.

First launched in 2015, the project was created to improve the visual appearance of several vacant storefronts, thereby enhancing the overall ambiance and pedestrian experience in the downtown.

This year, as in the last three years, Professor Warren Lehrer worked with his Community Design class to populate the storefronts with visual poetry as part of their work for the semester, which focuses on pro-bono work to better the community.

The work is inspired by poems by award-winning writer/actor Judith Sloan. Sloan interviewed several downtown stakeholders regarding their perceptions and feelings about White Plains (and the world), which gave rise to several themes and phases to guide the students’ work. The Art in Vacant Spaces installations will be on display for three months or until the individual properties are rented.

This year, eight students worked together to transform six vacant storefronts on South Broadway. The author of ten books, Professor Lehrer, whose own work is heralded as fusing design and literature, said, “The art that students came up with this year featured typography as landscape and as metaphoric expression of interconnectedness; windows were used as frames of a comic strip; paper dolls were photographed and recast as monumental yet familiar figures; and drawings depicting three generations of clothes and tools illuminated a handwritten setting of a poem about working.” Of the poems, Sloan says, "This year’s themes focused on history: of a family over the course of a century in White Plains, of a building over decades; internal states of being—hope, desire, love of nature; celebrating the strength of women, and the power of resilience.”

White Plains Mayor Thomas Roach, who has been supportive of the project since its inception, said, "Congratulations to the White Plains BID for once again spearheading this creative initiative. Their innovative partnership with SUNY Purchase has benefited all involved. Art in Vacant Spaces has brought art and poetry to our downtown, sparking conversation and enlivening spaces that are currently not being utilized. We have been fortunate in White Plains to see our vacancy rate go way down. And while we continue to work to reduce it further, this initiative has provided a positive interim use for these spaces."

Brittany Brandwein, the Director of Events and Business Promotions for the White Plains BID and the project manager said, “We are thrilled to partner with Professor Lehrer’s Senior Level Community Design class once again to beautify vacant storefronts in downtown White Plains and we are not the only ones! Nearby property owners have expressed their appreciation for the windows in these vacant storefronts being improved with public art, including Michelle Coletti, Senior Director of Development at LMC Development. LMC will be constructing more than 1,000 residential units in the immediate area over the next few years.”

Lehrer received a 2017 Design Educators Award for the White Plains Storefront project from Design Incubation, a national organization that fosters dialogue between design educators, and grants awards for excellence in teaching and research.

The White Plains Storefront Project was one of several projects the Community Design class worked on this semester. Other projects included billboards for the For Freedoms 50 State Billboard Campaign, which uses art and advertising to encourage civic engagement. The students also worked on banners for American Riad, an award-winning community art project in Detroit spearheaded by the Ghana Think Tank.

The White Plains BID appreciates the City of White Plains and West-Ex Associates for their support, and for the generous sponsorship from LANline. The project is also supported by the Eugene & Emily Grant Faculty Incentive Fund.

Images and text of the poems and interviews with Professor Lehrer, Judith Sloan, Brittany Brandwein and/or any of the students are available upon request.

For more information and to download a free audio tour, visit www.wpbid.com/art.

About Purchase College, SUNY

Purchase College, part of the State University of New York (SUNY) network of 64 universities and colleges, was founded in 1967 by Governor Nelson Rockefeller. His aspiration for Purchase was to create a dynamic campus that combined conservatory training in the visual and performing arts with programs in the liberal arts and sciences, in order to inspire an appreciation for both intellectual and artistic talents in all students. Today, Purchase College, SUNY is a community of students, faculty, and friends where open-minded engagement with the creative process leads to a lifetime of intellectual growth and professional opportunity. For more information about the College, visit www.purchase.edu.

Image: i want - Samuel Sheen

Courtesy of White Plains BID and Purchase College, SUNY