PSA Projects is an exterior alternative project space located at 2509 N. Lawndale Avenue, in Logan Square. Started in September 2012 by Casey Smallwood and Andrew Cantrell, PSA Projects shows site-specific, time-based visual works of commercial length, by emerging and established artists. The works are projected through the front window of the space, to be viewed within the time of commuting (walking, cycling, driving, or otherwise moving by). Both the space and the works explore an uneasy spectatorship situated between absorption and distraction, publicity and privacy, and movement and habitation.

PSA Projects seeks to remove the institutional restrictions of moving images as art. It seeks to activate the general public by moving the imagery through a private space: a neighborhood, a home, a front window. At it’s core it is evoking a pedagogical stance on art viewing, in order to activate a viewer to make a decision, to watch from a particular perspective. It wants to start a dialog about contemporary art viewing with a new audience, a fresh perspective. By situating itself as a venue for Public Service Announcements, it is a call for action. It’s time for something new, it’s time for new venues – it’s OUR time.

Art is changing, it has been changing, and it always will be changing, we hope. But the current mode of viewing art is becoming outdated in the current economic climate. Things are site-specific. They have to be. We’ve exhausted abstraction. We’ve exhausted the original space with tiny holes filled with caulk for passive viewers. We need to stop protecting the framework of the viewer, and pose questions, possibilities, and uncertainties.

We are using technology to create closeness, real live closeness with each other. We are using an ever changing political climate as an umbrella for the foundation of new ideas and methodologies. And we are using the most basic means for formulating and establishing this time together, the sunset. The magic hour. THIS is our time. A proposition for human interaction.

We, as makers, want people to see our work. We need a platform to voice our opinions. We need this because we need a conversation, not a monologue. We need to activate our viewers. We need new viewers. We need our viewers to become participants.

PSA is using a residence, our home, to show new works externally, invested in activating a new audience, our neighborhood. People.

Screenings on Sunday evenings at sundown for 2 hours. Specific times listed on the current tab.

For more information, contact caseylsmallwood@gmail.com.