Client: Baltimore Office for Promotion of the Arts

Overview

Choose your own Adventure transformed Baltimore’s Charles Street Bridge into a colorful playscape of pedestrian pathways and hanging beach balls. The project was commissioned by Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts for the free 2018 Artscape Festival. Spray chalk lines marked a site-based map converging under a forest of beach balls hanging from an open air structure. The streetscape-enhancing project was a collaboration between Baltimore-based public artists Becky Borlan and Graham Coreil-Allen.

Goals

Choose your own Adventure took inspiration from the natural paths taken by street-crossing pedestrians, the Jones Falls and train tracks below, and the joyful experiences of summer-inspired toys. Hundreds of thousands of festival goers interacted with the kinetic environment of over five hundred colorful, translucent beach balls and a line striping street mural covering over three thousand square feet. Numerous beach balls featured hand-painted instructions offering choices for adventures beyond. Adventures included “Write a Poem in the Dirt”, “Change your name for the summer,” and “Take the first train to the end of the line.” Through tactical urbanism and creative design, the installation previewed possibilities for completely transforming the Charles Street Bridge into a playful, poetic, and pedestrian environment.