El Barrio is home!
Augmented reality installationCaribbean Cultural Center and African Diaspora Institute commission, 2016
- For documentation of artworks by the CCCADI artists see this article at vice.com
- For an overview and information on accessing the artworks, see the Mi Querido Barrio website .
The facade of the new CCCADI building is also the trigger for the El Barrio is home! augment.
The Caribbean Cultural Center and African Diaspora Institute is a cultural center for the world-wide African diaspora based in East Harlem ("Spanish Harlem") in New York City.
Back in 2012 as AR artistic advisor I helped them get a Rockefeller Foundation Cultural Innovation Award for "Mi Querido Barrio," a Street Art project to put their art, culture and history on the streets of El Barrio/East Harlem using augmented reality.
I held workshops in AR for CCCADI's artists, and they invited me to create a work for the exhibit that would trigger off the facade of the new building itself.
For my piece we asked residents to answer the question, "What makes El Barrio feel like home to you?" I took their handwritten and signed answers and transformed them into golden words that swirl around you when you scan the facade.
Street level facade of CCCADI's new building during the Grand Opening.
We processed around the block to consecrate CCCADI's new home.
Under the "EL" that runs down Park Avenue through East Harlem.
Coming back to the CCCADI building (far right of screenshot).
Scanning the facade to get El Barrio is home!, and me in front of the new CCCADI building.
Things were so busy I didn't managed to get a selfie with the gang,
but here at least are CCCADI founder and director Marta Moreno-Vega (left) and Mi Querido Barrio
co-curator and project manager Regina Bultron Bengoa (right).
Please see this article at vice.com for documentation of some artworks from CCCADI artists in the Mi Querido Barrio exhibit.