The Free Shop is a community cohesion art project center around giving to the community instead of pushing it away. In effort to address issues of gentrification in the mid-market area I would host a pop-up shop of free clothes and goods donated by the employees of start-up companies emerging in the area, and other community members. The store would only exist Saturday April 19th from 11am-6pm, and would provide free clothing for the community’s less fortunate. The only thing that we ask for in exchange is their answers to two questions; “What will you do with these items?” “What brought you to this area?”
A staff of 6 people would maintain order to the store, enforce the 5 item limit rule, and gather answers at register. (Possibly take photos of each person)
The answers would be recorded online where people could connect a face to the answers, and view the community through a more humanistic lens.