Exploring the corner of art and community

My mother’s father’s grocery, at Seventh and Berks, was a step up from the horse-drawn wagon with which he’d started. Produce was displayed along one wall. Carp idled in a tank awaiting sacrifice to the gods of gefilte fish. The living room and kitchen nested behind; the bedroom above. My grandparents raised two school teachers and a pharmacist there — and farmed out another son they could not support.

My pocket of West Philly had Acme, Food Fair, Penn Fruit. Our corner stores were pharmacies: Brill’s, Garden Court; Powers & Reynolds. Their soda fountains drew me, their comics and pinball. The conflicts were adults versus kids, not ethnic: “You gonna buy what you’re reading?” or “Quit shaking that machine!” My biggest heist was slipping empty soda bottles into my school bag and re-redeeming them a day later. It never would have occurred to me that I was participating in art or intercultural and intergenerational exchanges.

Inspiration in Chinatown

But two artists now working in Philly are bringing that take to the public. Keir Johnston, a 35-year-old Philadelphian, and Ernel Martinez, 38, an L.A. émigré, are members of the public art collective Amber Art & Design, and their Corner Store (Take-Out Stories) is opening at Asian Arts Initiative (AAI) this month.

The stores that concern Johnston and Martinez are the take-out ones of Chinatown North. Owned primarily by Chinese and Korean immigrants, patronized primarily by blacks and Latinos, they breed resentments and mistrust the artists hope to sooth through openness and understanding.

From the owners’ far end of the poisoned-thought spectrum, their customers are wastrels, potential thieves, or inflictors of violence. On the other hand, in some of the shoppers’ views, the merchants are exploiters, who gouge them with inflated prices and siphon money from their communities. They press against each other within the stores’ constricted space. They view each other through the warp of bulletproof glass and the smoke from cigarettes one has sold the other for 35 cents apiece.

Youth get involved

The artists’ effort will be multifaceted, and as usual for the Amber group, it has a strong youth component. As part of AAI’s annual summer Youth Arts Workshop (YAW), from July 7 – August 15, students will interview neighborhood merchants and residents, and videos of these interviews will later be incorporated into the AAI exhibition.

They wanted “to give voice to folks who normally don’t have the opportunity to talk about themselves,” Martinez says. He hopes that by collecting and exchanging stories, each group would view the other more compassionately. Community members, both store owners and customers, are also invited to take part in an online survey here.

In addition, students will lead walking tours of the neighborhood’s corner stores. And YAW participants will build their own “stores” within AAI’s workshop area, where, in pop-up performances, they will enact their own versions of commerce with their own goods and homemade currency.

Traveling 'corner stores'

Part of the project’s launch came on May 29, when Amber Arts members wheeled free-standing, phone booth-sized replicas of take-out stores the four miles from Amber Arts’s Port Richmond studio to the AAI exhibition space in Chinatown North, a journey that stood not just for those of the store owners from their countries of origin but for all journeys from all ports of embarkation — and the challenges and opportunities they present. In the gallery at this journey’s end, visitors will experience photographs, mixed media portraits, pop-up performances, and more.

Corner Store aims to knock down barriers, erase distortions, deepen the appreciation of what a community is, and expand the understanding of what art may be.

Corner Store (Take-Out Stories), a partnership of Amber Art & Design and the Asian Arts Initiative and its Youth Arts Workshop, runs from June 1 to August 22 at AAI, 1219 Vine Street, Philadelphia. There will be an opening reception from 6-8pm on June 6, and a First Friday Open House on August 1 from 6-8pm. A closing reception, in conjunction with AAI’s YAW summer celebration, will take place on Friday, August 15 from 6-8pm.

Through June 23, youngsters can register for this year’s YAW program, running July 7 to August 15. Click here for the online registration form.