'SPACES FOR SPONTANEOUS SINGING' Los Angeles Design Festival

Los Angeles, California

‘Spaces for Spontaneous Singing’, was a temporary installation for the Los Angeles Design Festival, Market Row DTLA June 20-23, 2019.  The festival theme was ‘Design with Purpose’. This installation invoked this theme as the ‘Purpose of Joy’ by bringing the activity of ‘singing in the shower’ into the public realm.

Spaces for Spontaneous Singing’ brings the activity of uninhibited singing from a private spatial experience of one’s shower, to the public street, inviting moments of joyful expression within a new form of dedicated urban mini ‘singing shower park’. The installation, open to the public, was sited in conjunction with and adjacent to other Design Festival events and designed as an intergenerational social experience. Conceptual, waterless ‘showers’ - shower bases (stages), privacy screens and seating - can be experienced alone or in social groupings, allowing for a ‘private’ singing experience or for couples, families and friends to sing together, or sit and view the show.

The deeper concept is that in play and joy, vulnerable boundaries of the private and public dissolve. This installation pushes the boundary of personal norms into public social behavior, using an ‘authorized’ play setting for all ages. By reversing public and private behavioral, stereotypical spatial designations, it explores ‘belonging’ - where we feel comfortable, where we hide and where we test our private face in public. The hope is that this experiment yields both the stepping over restrictive personal thresholds, alliances and friendships with a community of participants, and the temporary reclamation of urban space for alternative public territory.

Credits: Renderings by Kelli McGrath

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