“Wouldn’t It Be Nice…” is an installation funded by the Mid Market Arts Project, SFAI. It is due to be installed late March between 5th and 9th on Market street, San Francisco. It is a public installation along the boarded up spaces in Market Street. Community feedback will inform the design of a series of peep boxes, seen through spyholes into the boarded up shopfronts on Mid Market Street.
Passers-by spy through the peep holes and see small models depicting fantasy ideas from local residents, shop or office workers. These fantastical little models sit behind the boarding, in the unseen spaces. The aim of the Market Street peep boxes is not to imitate realism, but to give a chance for the locals to imagine what could be in these private spaces. The glass lens (spy hole) as a device allows the participant to suspend reality as they peer through, imagining that they are really looking into a private fantasy world.
The scope for interaction is twofold; we ask visitors to this site, and locals on the street what they imagine could be behind these boards and we build some of their ideas into the models. Then locals and passers by look into the holes and imagine what could be there, and start to consider the hidden spaces and possibilities of their city.
So please write your comments below - in response to the images of the boarded up spaces - and maybe your idea will get made into a peep box!
