In 2012, art curators Jasmine Wahi and Rebecca Pauline Jampol took part in an exhibition inside an empty retail space in Newark. Soon after, that initial collaboration evolved into Project for Empty Space, a Newark-based nonprofit supporting women, LGBTQIA+ and marginalized artists by offering studio spaces and grants, while also housing large exhibitions.
Here, the founders share a little more about what’s next for this thriving organization.
What drives Project for Empty Space? Jasmine Wahi: Our mission comes from living through some of the issues we are trying to confront, and thinking of ways to respond to these through art. We’re interested in the future of what art and society could be, and in how we can create a space for ourselves.
And why Newark? Rebecca Pauline Jampol: Newark has such an interesting and inspiring creative history, as seen through the generations of local artists and the public art that has been created here. The city is also developing quickly and we feel strongly about helping to create a sustainable arts model for it, like with our subsidized space program that provides 40 artist studios.
What’s next? JW: We’re opening a space in Chinatown at the end of this year. It will be an exhibition and residency space with virtual and in-person programming. We’re also working on a 2024 show that will go across the country in a box truck retrofitted as a gallery.
