Visualizing ThirdSpace

This project was one of my first attempt to think about ways to visualize urban questions. This was actually a submission for a pop up art exhibition. The Corridor Project was/is a site specific contemporary art museum based in Orlando, Florida. My submission for this project explores the meanings created by the intersection of space and place in the modern urban environment. Using a specific geographic location, the goal was to visualize meaning linked to a third space in Orlando.  The goal was to highlight the emergence of identity linked to the evolution of a commercial space into a community hangout.  The concept of the third place refers to social designation attributed to an environment beyond the home and the workplace.  Books such as Better Together: Restoring the American Community, Celebrating the Third Place, and Social Life of Small Urban Space all share an emphasis on “third spaces” acting as vital centers of social interaction and community building.  While the impact of a functional third place is clear, the forces that facilitate their emergence are not.  I used this public art project as a way to explore the idea in Orlando.  I used 1842 E. Winter Park Road(Stardust Video and Coffee) as the focal point of a visual representation of spatial meaning gleamed from text culled from public databases between 1985 and 2012. Stardust is a community hub, this project capture some small element of that evolution. The final result was the creation of an installation that highlights the shifting perceptions and associations that define Stardust in the community.