Wealthy End to End
2008
Open Wealthy - Open Studio
2008What makes public life? How does our understanding of paths, boundaries and buildings shape our movement and imagination as we navigate through this environment? And what use is this imagination in the creation of public life?
Our time on Wealthy has been focused on many issues surrounding public art and interaction. In this context, we understand the complexities of interacting and coming to know this diverse five-mile corridor. To help make our work more tangible, we divided the street into 15 sections, which allowed us to more thoroughly investigate individual areas. Our research is continuously being documented on Viget, a Grand Rapids wiki. We also encourage open dialogue with the people who live and work in the area defined by Wealthy St. Bicycling down this street, it is clear that Wealthy acts as both a path and a boundary. We are interested in investigating both how and why certain boundaries exist. Are the boundaries created by physical, mental or social constraints? Creating our own maps is one way to explore the curious correlation between boundaries which have been created for us and those we create on our own. Using discarded bottles to gather water from Reed's Lake raises additional questions of ownership and property rights. The labels, which contain images of Wealthy, allow each participant to carry a "piece" of Wealthy Street with them.
