Pop-Up Collaboration

Q: Is it a marketing agency? Is it an exhibition space? Is it a pop-up store?
A: It's all of them. And it's called 303 Grand.

I can't work out if this is the future of collaboration and making stuff tangible or an attempt to ward off the credit crunch by making the most of the space you've got. But either way, I'm in.

303 Grand is a store owned and operated by Street Attack in Brooklyn. From 1 day to 3 months, brands, artists or organisations have the opportunity to create an experiential pop-up store, plus they get the assistance of a marketing agency thrown in.

What a great way to collaborate with a tangible focus and outcome.

AT

Signs That Say What You Want Them To Say And Not Signs That Say What Someone Else Wants You To Say

Gillian Wearing exposes in her art the opposition between public and private faces. She called her work 'editing life'.

When I look at how people use brands I often think how we use them to tell the public world a story about who we are: or rather how we wish to be perceived by others. They are a way of protecting our private selves from disclosure. We carefully edit into our lives the ones which best represent our desired public persona.

And look at how brands are facilitating this in the way they present themselves to consumers: linked-in says I'm networked; facebook says I'm social; fairtrade says I'm ethically aware; Nike says I challenge myself. The list goes on.

Perhaps in the future, brands will start to facilitate a more open, revealing dialogue: a collective experience. A confessional platform for group catharsis, closing the gap between all of the fragmented versions of ourselves that exist out there digitally.

AT