Discover the upper 14th Street community this Saturday at OPENkitch'n

Pink Line has activated vacant spaces all around the city since 2007. Our original intention was to disrupt the model of how art is traditionally shown by taking it out of the usual venues and putting it into unconventional spaces. Providing a different way to experience art gave potential art lovers and patrons an uncomplicated access point to the arts with the hope that it would entice them to explore a little deeper.

Along the way, we discovered a pretty awesome by product of producing arts events in raw spaces that were often located in transitional neighborhoods: the arts contributed to the growing vitality of those neighborhoods and drew attention to the vibrancy of those neighborhoods. Pink Line’s first two major events in 2007 were held in raw spaces around 14^th and P Streets, NW. One of those spaces is now Estadio restaurant and the other one is the beautiful Fathom Creative office, and the area around those businesses is now filled with residences, shopping, businesses, and restaurants. Pink Line wasn’t the first or the last to bring arts to this now vibrant, walkable, liveable corridor, but we were proud to have made a contribution.

We’ve touched every quadrant of the city with this kind of vacant space activation, including most recently in Anacostia where we joined ARCH Development to produce the kick-off festivities for LUMEN8Anacostia. Made possible by an ArtPlace grant, LUMEN8Anacostia filled vacant storefronts in historic Anacostia with temporary retail for eight weeks. Thousands of people came to the festival from across the city. Many said they had never even been across the Anacostia River. The arts drew them. Will they come back? I hope so! We recently learned that the H Street Theatre Company will move to Anacostia and will occupy a warehouse that was the site of the first Cherry Blast.  So excited that the arts continue to thrive in Anacostia!

And we're especially thrilled to see OPENkitch'n come to the upper 14th Street, NW neighborhood!!

OPENkitch’n is another ArtPlace granted art project that engages a community and draws attention to its own vibrancy. This project is the brainchild of Rebar, a public art and design studio that “creates projects that inspire people to reimagine the environment and our place in it.” Rebar teamed up with neighborhood business associations, the DC Office of Planning (DCOP), local restaurants, and artists to produce a progressive dinner and culture crawl along upper 14th Street NW. The culture crawl will make stops at several locations in the neighborhood for samplings of local flavor and cool refreshments. 

Some other highlights of the OpenKitch’n Culture Crawl:

• Tim Conlon & Albus Cavus, with DECOY and Chanel Compton will create murals at the corner of 14th and Randolph Streets, NW.
• Chukwuma Agubokwu  will perform HURR POEM, performance piece in which Chuk turns himself into a moving poem by biking back and forth on 14th Street between the barbershops with poem stanzas attached to his back. One by one the selection of words will be rested at the various barbershops.
• Live music by 00Genesis (corner of 14^th and Randolph) and Margot MacDonald (in front of Red Derby from 7:30pm).
• Red Derby will create a signature cocktail and ice-cream sandwiches!

OPENkitch'n is curated by Justine Topfer

The event is ticketed. http://openkitchn.eventbrite.com

All money raised will go back to the community. You can buy $10 and $25 sampler tickets, or you can really support the community and the arts by going whole hog, which gets you: samples of all food and refreshments, a limited edition event print, acknowledgement as a neighborhood visionary supporter, and a chance to win a Tim Conlon designed table. (WOO!)

Date: Saturday, August 18, 2012

Time: 5-9 PM

Where: 14th Street, NW (between Shepherd and Spring)