Rooms To Let: How To Make Art In Unlikely Places

In a vacant Slavic Village home, mirrors affixed to plastic bottles line the walls, reflecting ceramic figurines jutting from soil spread on the floor. It’s not where you’d usually find an art installation, but this is typical for Rooms to Let. The sixth annual event, held this year May 18 and 19, packs three soon-to-be-demolished Slavic Village homes with floor-to-ceiling installations by local artists. Since 2014, attendance has grown from 500 to 3,500. But there’s more to it than just art says Gina Washington, who crafted the aforementioned 2018 piece in a house she curated with her cohort The Visit Arts Collective: “This whole thing is all about community.” Here, she shares lessons learned from making art in an unlikely space. 

Stick to a Theme  While Rooms to Let doesn’t require a theme, The Visit Arts Collective chose “origins” for the house it curated to help their diverse ideas inside an uncommon setting. Washington’s piece included an origin story inspired by the house that she wrote and translated into 50 languages. This year, the collective chose the theme “be still.” Washington wants to make it even more immersive. “We want to make it a cohesive experience, so the house is one idea,” she says.  

Build In Time For Cleaning  Accessing the building a month before 2018’s event, the collective had to ensure the house was safe before they started construction. They bug-bombed it, removed debris and bleached the walls to kill mold. There was no electricity, so they ran electrical lines from a neighboring home. No running water meant drinking water had to be supplied. “We literally lived at the house that summer,“ she says.   

Respect the Space’s History  Meeting the family that had lived in the house for 70 years was the most impactful moment. They wrote memories on the walls, which then became part of the installation. “After the festival, they came back and wrote in their specific spaces to say goodbye to the house,” says Washington.