A Way, Away (Listen While I Say)

A Way, Away (Listen While I Say) is the first joint commission for Chicago-based artists Amanda Williams and Andres L. Hernandez. The project activates an empty land parcel as well as an adjacent building at 3721 Washington Boulevard, which has been slated for demolition. A Way, Away is organized to unfold in five stages: Marking (painting the building gold), Subtracting (demolishing the building and salvaging materials for later use), Translating (distributing the materials within the local community for design projects), Shaping (reshaping the topographical contours of the landscape), and Healing (regenerating the green space). By choreographing the process in this way, the artists invite us to pause and evaluate the life cycle of the urban landscape. Drawing inspiration from classic tropes in blues music about hope and unrequited love, the work’s title is meant to evoke the cycle of loss and transformation that characterizes the built environment. The project is ongoing through fall 2017 and is located at 3713–3721 Washington Boulevard, St. Louis, MO 63108, across the street from the Pulitzer Arts Foundation. To experience the full scope of the project visit awayaway.site for interviews with the artists, essays, and behind the scenes content, including a video of the Marking phase in progress.

A Way, Away (Listen While I Say) is a continuation of PXSTL, a series of design-build commissions organized by the Pulitzer Arts Foundation and the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. PXSTL—an acronym that stands for the Pulitzer, Sam Fox School, and St. Louis—was founded on the belief that creative interventions have the power to serve as meaningful catalysts for urban transformation. 

Related events

Lecture by Michael Stone-Richards
Friday, May 5, 7–8pm

A conversation with Amanda Williams, Andres L. Hernandez, and Walter J. Hood
Saturday, May 6, 3:30-4:30pm

Lecture by Keller Easterling
Saturday, May 6, 5–6pm

About the Pulitzer Arts Foundation
The Pulitzer Arts Foundation, in St. Louis, MO, is one of the nation’s leading presenters of experimental, progressive, and multi-disciplinary art. With exhibitions and public projects that encompass both historic and contemporary art from across the globe, along with an equally diverse agenda of creative public programs, the Pulitzer seeks to heighten community engagement with art, and to inspire audiences to think differently about art and its relationship to their lives.

A non-collecting institution, the Pulitzer occupies one of the world’s most celebrated examples of museum architecture, a Tadao Ando-designed building that comprises spacious galleries illuminated by abundant natural light, creating poetic, multilayered experiences of the art within. For more information, visit pulitzerarts.org.

The Pulitzer is free and open to the public Wednesday through Saturday. Hours are 10am–5pm on Wednesday and Saturday, 10am–8pm on Thursday and Friday. For more information: pulitzerarts.org or T 314 754 1850.

About the Sam Fox School
The Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts is an interdisciplinary and diverse community of artists, architects, designers, curators, and scholars dedicated to excellence in learning, creative activity, research and exhibition. The School’s unique structure allows it to build on the strengths of each unit—Art, Architecture, and the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum—and to draw on the resources of Washington University to create new knowledge and address the social and environmental challenges of our time. For more information, visit samfoxschool.wustl.edu.

Pulitzer Arts Foundation press contacts:
Lucy O’Brien: lucyobrien.comm [​at​] gmail.com / T 646 590 9267
Stephanie Markovic: smarkovic.comm [​at​] gmail.com / T 347 628 4688