Creative District Wilmington has chosen the artists for the first phase of public art projects for the 7th Street Arts Bridge project.
The works will be located on 7th Street from Shipley to Madison in Wilmington and will connect the downtown with West Center City and Quaker Hill.
Laura Semmelroth is Creative District Wilmington’s Program Director. She says the four artists chosen will display works from a variety of artistic disciplines including visual installations of art and events on some vacant lots.
“All these folks are from Delaware,” she says. "They're a very varied group so the artwork is going to be varied in nature. This will really show the world that Wilmington has talent.”
Artists selected included the graffiti inspired art of Crae and Corei Washington of Smashed Label and painter Terrance Vann. Work is scheduled to begin in early Spring.
Semmelroth says one project will be an installation called the “Musical Fence” where folks can interact with a variety of musical instruments.
“They can also interact with each other to create the music,” she says “Some of it you’ll have to physically hold hands with someone else to create a loop that will activate the musical instruments, so that project is going to be really interesting."
In 2014, the Wilmington Renaissance Corporation unveiled plans to turn a portion of downtown Wilmington into a creative district.
The plan includes turning the neighborhood’s high percentage of abandoned properties into housing, production spaces, creative offices, performance venues, galleries, and retail locations.
Wilmington’s Creative District is part of a national wave of inventive place making initiatives aimed at invigorating neglected neighborhoods.
Last summer, Interfaith Community Housing of Delaware began work on the Willing Street Artists Village – transforming six vacant houses in the city’s Quaker Hill District into 10 condos and homes with artist studios.
Semmelroth says the first house will be finished in April.
This piece is made possible, in part, by a grant from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.
