The Art of Vacant Storefronts

After receiving 400 submissions of artwork and choosing 13 finalists, the Cambridge Community Development Department has announced the five winning submissions of the Vacant Storefront Creative Design Contest. The winners were voted on by the Cambridge public. Owners of vacant properties may now request a large-scale print of any of the five designs, all of which are works by local Cambridge artists, to display in their windows.

The design contest, announced back in January, invited local artists to submit two-dimensional images that would hang in the windows of vacant storefronts in Cambridge. The project, spearheaded by the Cambridge Arts Council and the Cambridge Economic Development Division, aims to curb the detrimental effects of vacancies on the public environment.

“This type of partnership with economic development and local businesses really gives us an opportunity to, in a very effective and high-profile way, make sure that artists are part of how we experience retail districts,” Jason Weeks, Director of the Cambridge Arts Council, said.

“It was really about the community, interpreted by the community, on all levels,” he added.

The design contest is part of a larger effort by the Cambridge Community Development Department to minimize potential negative economic impacts of street-level vacancies. The Department created a retail strategy plan in 2017, which spurred a vacant storefront study that was released last year. A database of retail vacancies in Cambridge is now available online.

“Obviously [vacancies] affect street-level continuity, because if you’re walking along, the quality of your experience is impacted,” Lisa Hemmerle, Economic Development Director at the Community Development Department, said. “We’re really identifying best practices from other cities, whether it be artwork in the space, or pop-up stores in the space.”

This research has led to a sustained dialogue between Cambridge Economic Development and the Cambridge Arts Council. “We’ve long partnered with them to think about how to activate some of these spaces in the short term,” Weeks said. “This project kind of came out of those conversations.”

The ability for property owners to request prints of the selected pieces mitigates some of the challenges that arise from using original artwork and artist pop-ups to fill vacancies.

“The constraints for property owners is that they don’t want to put real artwork in the store for insurance and liability issues,” Hemmerle said. “So we thought through this process of promoting our own city artists […] and if we are able to put the media on our website, and award it to certain artists, and the property owners can download it and display it as prescribed.”

“[The owners] may not want to occupy the space with long-term durable hard objects, because they need it show-ready,” Weeks said. “The artist’s work in this case will be right on the windows, at that human scale, that you’ll see as you pass by.”

Many store owners whose properties are surrounded by vacancies have said that they are looking forward to the initiative. They also acknowledge, however, that it’s a temporary fix to a systemic local issue of rising rents and business turnover.

“I think it’s a dramatic improvement over brown paper covering those windows,” Randy Ricker, owner of Brattle Square Florist, said. “Do I think it will change the business dynamic of the area? I don’t think so,” he added.

Andy Farrar, who works at Moleskine on Brattle Street, was more hopeful. “It probably, ideally will bring more people and have them keep walking,” Farrar said. “I know right now, a lot of people just stop at that corner and they don’t really continue,” they added, referring to the corner of Brattle Street and Eliot Street, which currently contains two adjacent vacancies.

According to the January-February 2019 Cambridge Ground Floor Vacancy database released by the Cambridge Community Development Department, 14 of the 50 vacancies in Cambridge are in the Harvard Square neighborhood.

“Coming over here now, like, this is Harvard Square, seeing all these vacancies, it’s pretty disappointing,” Claude Jeudy, another employee at Moleskine, said.

So far, however, there are signs that the design contest will bring some much-needed cohesion to Cambridge streets.

“A variety of property owners across the city that have expressed interest and a few have begun to commission the prints. We expect the first round of images will be up around Cambridge in the upcoming weeks,” Pardis Saffari, a senior manager at the Economic Development division, wrote in an email.

Members of the local arts community received the initial call for submissions through the Cambridge Arts Council newsletter when the project was announced. The winning pieces utilize a variety of media, from photography to landscape painting.

Deidre L. Tao, a Central Square-based artist whose work was selected as one of the five winners, was excited to hear about the initiative. “I think it’s a really positive solution,” she said. “I love the idea of utilizing two-dimensional art as a way to help revitalize some of these spaces.”

“I submitted a few pieces that I thought were relevant to Cambridge,” Judith Motzkin, whose artwork was also selected, said. Motzkin has long been embedded in the local art scene and she founded the Open Studios program, now run by the Cambridge Arts Council.

Shane Taremi, another contest winner, also submitted work that he intended to evoke the city of Cambridge. “This unreal reality series that I created combines architectural elements from the particular city with the inhabitants of the city,” he said. “Having local residents from Cambridge and Boston seeing in a vacant storefront a photo of what they were really walking amongst, I thought it would make sense for the design contest and what they were trying to do.”

After an internal committee winnowed down the many submission to 13 semi-finalists, the artists were notified that their pieces had advanced to a public vote.

“I didn’t do too much for getting people to vote for my piece — posted it on Facebook and asked some friends,” Motzkin said.

“I was able to say to all my people, on Instagram and on my newsletter, vote for me!” Tao said. “It was neat that it was both private jurors and then allowed for the public to vote.”

In exchange for beautifying vacant storefronts with their work, the selected artists will receive on-the-ground publicity and an increased stake in the local arts community.

“They had a $1,000 stipend, and I’m going to using that to actually rent a space for a Friday night or something to show the exhibition, so it’s almost feeding itself,” Taremi said.

“I would love to see it printed on a translucent medium,” Motzkin said of her selected piece, calling the layered photographic work an exploration of “nature plus.”

“It’s a mystery to me how that process will unfold,” she added.

On the future of the project, both the artists and city employees involved expressed hope that it would continue as long as necessary. “For this, my images can be used for up to two years,” Tao said.

The collaboration between Cambridge Arts Council and the Economic Development Division will also continue to drive the project.

“As we move into the second year, we’ll find things that worked or didn’t work,” Hemmerle said.

Weeks echoed this commitment to finding best practices. “We’ll continue to be partners throughout,” he said.

— Staff Writer Amelia F. Roth-Dishy can be reached at amelia.roth-dishy@thecrimson.com.