8 Places You Are Right Now (Western Pole/Western Portal)
2022
Two custom signs printed on paper
11” x 8.5” each
Where are you right now? No matter how you respond to that question, it is not the only possible answer. A place is nothing more than a meaning adhered to a space, and any number of meanings can be layered onto a single location. We may be aware of such meanings or not, we may celebrate them or ignore them; regardless, they are all there, existing right on top of each other. Where we are is, in a sense, where we choose to be.
8 Places You Are Right Now is an ongoing installation which changes form with each iteration; this is the first iteration to be displayed simultaneously in two locations. These two signs were created for display on Western Pole (a lamppost on Chicago’s Lower West Side) and Western Portal (a lamppost near the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville) in April 2022. Both are ongoing projects of Chicago artist/curator Jesse Malmed, in which artists are invited to create works for month-long display on a public street corner.