​

Project Interchange is an event that brings together poets from Albuquerque and Santa Fe in a performative, creative dialogue about connection and community and will occur simultaneously in both cities. This project is organized by Friends of the Orphan Signs in collaboration with Axle Contemporary. 

Poets in each city will text each other via a live group message which will be projected onto large-scale outdoor walls. The conversations will expand from guiding questions about our relationship to one another. Albuquerque poets include Sara Rivera, Valerie Martinez, Beca Alderete Baca, Amaris Ketcham, Mallika Singh, and 
Jaye Elizabeth Elijah
. Santa Fe poets include Edie Tsong, Darryl Lorenzo Wellington, Loretta Trujillo, and Arte Romero y Carver
.

Though only separated by 60 miles, Santa Fe and Albuquerque are divided by socio-economic and cultural factors which inform our experiences of each place. Project Interchange seeks to explore this gap and to offer expansive dialog about those factors that separate us and those that connects us. This project offers a space that seeks to expand how we understand and connect to each other and ourselves. 

​

The project website interchange.city is an online platform which supplements the physical iterations of the project. The public is invited to use the website as a platform for submitting responses to the questions.

​

Friends of the Orphan Signs (FOS) is a collaborative public art organization of artist-educators that creatively revitalizes abandoned or unused road signs with artwork, with a particular focus along historic Route 66 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. FOS facilitates innovative collaborations and educational workshops with local communities with the aim of designing new imagery to install in the signs as public art pieces.  We work to revitalize the visual landscape of underserved urban neighborhoods while centering the voices of its residents. Our signs are public, accessible on foot and in car, and are on major thoroughfares throughout Albuquerque.

​

The Santa Fe portion of project is made possible with the support and cooperation of
The Railyard Art Project
El Museo Cultural
Currents New Media Festival
Harwood Art Center in Albuquerque