First Look: Inside Klip Collective’s INCREDIBLE New Installation at the Bok Building!

Titled ‘Vacant America,’ Klip Collective‘s inspired installation inside one of the Bok Building‘s former gyms offers viewers a palpable glimpse into the building’s past.

Klip Collective, if you haven’t heard of them (which I can’t imagine is possible), is an experiential art shop integrating projection lighting and technology with storytelling to create compelling experiences on behalf of institutions, corporate clients, and cultural partners. Photographer Pier Nicola DʼAmico and video artist Ricardo Rivera founded Klip in 2003 to create immersive and large-scale video projection experiences.

Vacant America uses, or should I say reuses, items found within Bok, including year books, text books, and instruments. The installation will change ever so slightly throughout its run as more and more histories from the school are added to it! (Right now it’s mostly pictures and sound recordings from the 1940s and ’50s, in addition to the more recent desks and furniture.) Here’s how Klip talks about the installation on their Facebook page:

“Vacant America is the vision of Klip Collective artists to create a series of video installations uncovering physical memories and visual residues from America’s forgotten and changing spaces. At Bok, we are exploring interpretive storytelling through immersive mediums, such as installation art and virtual reality. With the first installment in the former Girls’ Gymnasium, this project seeks to capture the history and tangible memories contained in the former school.”

The installation will open this Friday and run through the month of July on Wednesdays (6-9 pm), Fridays (6-9pm) and Saturdays (1-4pm). The entrance can be found on Mifflin Street across from the Southwark School parking lot.

Vacant America is a project of Creative Capital and supported in part by Sundance Institute New Frontier Story Lab. Select interviews heard in the piece were recorded by StoryCorps.

Absolutely love, love, LOVE this, y’all got to check it out! Special thanks to Ricardo Rivera for letting me be one of the first people to come get a peek!

And if you never saw my photos exploring the Bok Building from last summer, I strongly suggest you check that out HERE!