Client: Harvard Ed Portal

Overview

An illuminated, crowdsourced showcase of the vibrant Boston community Allston-Brighton. Individuals and organizations (from childcare centers to assisted living homes, high schools to makerspaces) who live, work, and play in the neighborhood submitted their own short form videos, audio recordings, and photos, capturing everyday moments that sparked joy, familiarity, and togetherness—on their own, and through two guided in-person workshops. Artists Allison Tanenhaus and Maria Finkelmeier—who met at the Harvard Ed Portal—then put these contributed materials through a signature remix to elevate the everyday into a sublime public art multimedia experience.

Goals

Throughout New England's long winter nights, the public saw and heard Allston-Brighton in a whole new way as pulsating compositions beamed out of the windows and reverberated off the sidewalk. Running on a 20-minute loop for five hours each night (rain or shine!), the public took in the epically eye- and ear-catching public art experience that energized the neighborhood.

“This past year, through the Transformative Public Art Program, we really focused on supporting projects that aimed to make space for joy, reconnection, and celebration. ‘Frequencies’ engaged with several of the themes of the program this year, including addressing our current sense of place and interrelatedness, providing a space for people to come together in a way that was safe, and finding a way to celebrate aspects of our daily lives during what continues to be such a difficult moment in time for so many of us,” said Kara Elliott-Ortega, chief of arts and culture for the city of Boston.

Process

— Creative

Musician and composer Finkelmeier mashed up the patterns, rhythms, and hidden melodies of the crowdsourced sounds. Then Tanenhaus added kaleidoscopic colors, shapes, and textures as visual accompaniment to the soundtrack. The final installation is a celebratory collaboration between the artists with (and for!) the community.

— Technical

Two, 10k NEC commercial projectors with short thrown lenses created the images on the windows and wall of the exhibition—bright enough to stand out from the surrounding lights (including a gas station and streetlights).

Additional Information

FREQUENCIES was commissioned by the Harvard Ed Portal and supported by a Transformative Public Art Grant from the City of Boston Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture, with additional support from LuminArtz.