teint e staan art gli Sra, fort
Instalatone relating tothe nego past ana reser Then, Ne created Pores
Whar do your buildings do? We tey to link
Artist Rick Lowe preserves
humanity in Houston
vod by Jessica Dheore
ect Ram Hes to
artists would deen temporary
you havea special affinity for buildings? | don't ust love bung.
love how thay function and what they da forthe community
e histories {of the shotgun
withthe actives of a general area or neighborhood, to weave
ves were worthy of put
of commercial actvty lot the Third Wa
rugs, basicaly causing “back Might” Going into the future, were ging to have
to regain commercial aetuty along withthe housing. AS those resources—
grocery stores, laundromat, drugstores—come, theyre going to bring people
from diferent parts of te ey i's already a str
cultural identity; a good middleclass wil help stabi
‘own te line, ths wil be a wonderfuly med nelghborhood, not just atypical
‘one-oup-moves-n-and:-the-other-group-mowes-out kind of place.
Photograph by Janice Rubin
‘exiting. architect
Hfestyle and to create a dialogue
between the artists, the residents,
and the buildings.
Why did you create the ar galleries
before renovating the houses? We
thought the art woud ereate theca
logue that would present the
‘ppartunty to develop the resto the
project. had tobe about more than
‘a housing development, it had to be
spout cultural datogue.
What ki
done? We
‘american artists, but one ofthe be
tons have Been
mostly on Aiean
jects weve had
was by @ middle-aged white man. Hs work was about
‘archiving and preserving histories. He gave out about 100
teposable cameras to Thid Ward residents to let them
document the neighborhood the way they saw I He got
‘bout 75 back, developed the fm, and put the photos i
canning jars. People came out in droves to
selves as a part of tis exhibit, and they leaned that their
tention and acknowledgment.
Houses in 25 years? By 1997, 85 to 90 percent
rl to getaway from the guns and the
neighborhood in terms of
0H Twenty to 30 years