Kevin Dejewski and Omar Soliman, Installation

Squalor

Kevin Dejewski and Omar Soliman 

  This installation will transform a vacant storefront into an architecturally eclectic space.  It will become one part middle class living room, one part protest tent city, and one part foreclosed home.  Within this collage of all too familiar locations, will be two televisions facing each other. (see floor plan) Both televisions will be playing footage that is synced; yet contrasting.  One will be playing footage of politicians discussing the housing crisis, lofty promises to invest in rebuilding as well as cultural reform.  Footage ranges from F.D.R.’s fireside talks for economic recovery plans to Newt Gingrich’s promises to  “rebuild the America we love.”  The other television will be playing footage of cityscapes over different periods of time as well as across the United States.  Images of Detroit in its Golden Age and its current condition, the Bronx in the 1970s and Wall Street in the 1980s, Historic New Orleans and its state post-Katrina etc.

Through the components of this installation, concepts of wealth and distribution will be contrasted and confronted, the realization of expressive environments will be explored and a dialogue will be established between the historic flux U.S. cities have encountered and the attainment of our future.

1.      <!--[endif]-->sample texture of constructed walls

2.      <!--[endif]-->example of aesthetic of structure being built

3.      <!--[endif]-->screenshot: Detroit

4.      <!--[endif]-->screenshot: FDR

5.      <!--[endif]-->WPA poster to be wheat pasted to the constructed walls

6.      <!--[endif]-->screenshot: Detroit as Paris of the West

7.      <!--[endif]-->screenshot: New Orleans

8.      <!--[endif]-->screenshot: Obama

9.      <!--[endif]-->floorplan