Keep Albany Boring

Some of the best advice I’ve ever received was in the form of three simple words. Barely visible and scrawled in white, fading paint marker on the bottom of a crumbling brick wall, in all capital letters, were the words “LOOK AROUND YOU”. Author-less and gimmick-less. Hidden but beautiful in its harmlessness. I couldn’t tell you where I saw this, how old I was or who I was with, but that moment, of an instantaneous (and conversational) connection of being a passerby and relating to a public space continues to resonate within me.

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All Photos © Nina Blix

And that’s what the Living Walls is all about. That moment of seeing something unordinary in an ordinary space. That moment of seeing something that stands out but fits in at the same time. Engaging others in these curious moments amongst strangers and friends alike is a community-oriented call to action in reviving citywide decay and restoring peeling murals into their next life. It’s about promoting those moments of recognition, relation and inspiration. The Living Walls is a project designed to ignite these moments in our city and to use art in public spaces as a way to remind the community to LOOK AROUND.

Whoa.

So the Keep Albany Boring x Marketplace Gallery x Deep Children New Year’s Eve party went off with out a single hitch.

I woke up, got the photo booth packed up, our dj stuff packed up and headed over to the gallery at six. We set up, sound checked and then waited. I legitimately didn’t know whether people were going to show up, and right at nine there were groups of people heading in. After thirty more minutes, even more people kept flowing in and by when I started my dj set at ten there were people all over.The photobooth was getting used a ton by passers by, which is awesome that I didn’t have to tend to it all night. Mine and Duncan’s sets went great all things considered. Deep Children went on at eleven and absolutely murdered the room. Scott and Ryan were on fire and the dance floor definitely agreed. I really can’t state how amazing the set they played was, but those there can attest as I had overheard at least four pairs of people conversing about things such as “who are these guys and why don’t I know them” and “holy fuck these djs are so good”. The countdown was fun (of course) and there was plenty of champagne and confetti to go around. At that point it was wall to wall people, and they were going hard for about another two hours. Cops eventually came as things were getting close to wrapping up anyway and didn’t give us any shit.

Everything was awesome and everyone had an awesome night.

I can’t thank Samson for allowing this to happen as well as Scotty and Ryan for ripping everyone’s faces off with such good tunes. And I can’t thank everyone who came and had fun with us!

The photo booth was a blast.

Especially when it caught things like this:

And once people were packed in there was no way to have enough room for the booth, so I hopped around with the camera and got a good representation of the mood in the room.