City of Seattle, community leaders to preserve artwork from the CHOP
Jul 11, 2020, 7:18 AM
The CHOP may be gone, but parts of it will remain.
Artwork that was inside the area formerly known as the CHOP, Capitol Hill Organized Protest, will be preserved with the help of the city of Seattle and the Office of Arts & Culture. The city is working directly with artists and community leaders to safely remove the artwork first so businesses can reopen and Capitol Hill residents and visitors can move about freely.
SDOT begins removing barriers, toilets from CHOP area
The city is providing temporary safe storage of art pieces, and is planning to help to make the work publicly accessible.
“The CHOP is not just a physical location, it is a movement that is vibrant, passionate, and here to stay,” said the CHOP Art Council in the city’s Art Beat Blog post.
The goal is to keep creating and displaying art, the council added.
The Black Lives Matter mural painted on East Pine Street may be permitted under the Seattle Department of Transportation’s painted street mural program. SDOT has said it is committed to finding a way to preserve the mural.
Posts were recently installed around the mural to keep vehicles from driving on it until it can be properly preserved. There was also a new stop sign placed at 10th Avenue East and East Pine Street to “help eastbound drivers transition onto the block with the mural at a slower speed.”
Seattle journalist Omari Salisbury shares an inside look at the CHOP
Local journalist Omari Salisbury, who was reporting and live streaming from the CHOP almost daily, previously reported that King Street Station was considered as a potential location for the cataloging and curating of CHOP artwork that’s currently being stored by SDOT.
#CHOP #ART – Here at King Street Station which is operated by @seattledot getting a tour of potential temporary locations for the cataloging and curating only of the CHOP murals and art that SDOT is currently storing. The spaces we saw are curated by @SeattleArts pic.twitter.com/uSav0YisUI
— Omari Salisbury (@Omarisal) July 6, 2020
Seattle Parks and Recreation announced that it will work with the community to preserve aspects of the protests at Cal Anderson Park, including the creation of a permanent garden, featured art installations, and a possible speaker’s corner.
