Anyone who is at all familiar with the goings on in D.C. is well aware of the drastic changes taking place along 14th Street NW. To reflect and comment on this change, the Washington Project for the Arts\Corcoran is mounting SiteProjects DC, a collection of thirteen installations, performances, and projections examining the fluidity of the surrounding urban landscape. As can be expected from an exhibition of a diverse group of artists, the results are varied.

WPA\C first mounted a SiteProject exhibit in 1999 and chose independent curator Welmoed Laanstra to organize this collection. Laanstra was tapped, in part, because her prior experience with public outdoor collections has given her some expertise in dealing with the permitting and outreach requirements of such a show. Laanstra's vision was to display art that could be integrated into the neighborhood. Her hope is that passers-by will take the time to pause and absorb pieces they admire, or walk away from pieces they don't, and in doing so become collaborators in the artistic expression. Many of the local artists were either hand selected by Laanstra or chosen from an open call for submissions. All but three of the selected pieces, two performances and one installation, are currently on display along 14th Street between P and V Streets.

Photo by James Calder

The most successful piece is Shoe Tree, by Elizabeth Lundberg Morisette, on display at Duke's Shoe Repair, a U Street institution located in the Reeves Center. The installation, made using shoelaces and cotton webbing, resembles a cross section of a tree, which can be used as a measure of time. In this case, the piece measures time symbolically using Duke's life as a reference. The piece was such a success and Duke appreciated it so much that the artist will conduct a workshop on July 21st where neighborhood kids can create similar pieces to be displayed at the shop.

New Arrivals (pictured) by Caroline Mayorga is on display at Garden District, a neighborhood nursery. The piece places bright green cutouts of praying mantises on a brick wall outside of the store. The installation is one of the more purely aesthetically pleasing, as is an untitled bamboo sculputre by Piero Passacantando that hangs above the entrance to Muleh. The piece resembles a large windchime and gives an organic feel that is an affecting contrast to the rigidity of its surroundings. Other pieces of note include Cycles, Elements and Spaces in Between, a multimedia interactive design by Roberto Bocci that is on display at Metropolis at 14th and P, and Michael Lease's The Lack of Words, a photographic piece at the old Church of the Rapture at 14th and T.

A few other pieces work less well: The Bureau of Misdirected Destiny, by Matthew McGuinness and Eliza Newman Saul, an environmentally friendly installation, is an homage to the country's disappearing bee population. Whether this issue is a legitimate environmental concern may be up for debate, and it's not exactly clear how it, or the accompanying t-shirts were on sale next to the display, tie into to the 14th Street theme. Another piece involved the installation of thirty birdhouses along 14th Street which, as of Friday, were due to be removed because of permit issues. But the installation has problems beyond paperwork -- the arts and crafts-style birdhouses were installed so high that it is unlikely many people would even notice them.

SiteProjectsDC is on display through July 28. The specific locations of the installations and performance times are available on the WPA\C website.