}

Too vacant

Gallery Sign invited Ruiter Janssen as an artist in residence for three weeks in Groningen. Walking through the city center, the big number of vacant retail spaces attracted his attention. After some research, he found out that there were multiple factors contributing to this problem: the absence of customers, the renting-prices and the lack of action of the municipality.

Ruiter decided to give these vacant retail spaces a voice by filling one of these with typography. Several figures create more insight into retail vacancy. One of the diagrams shows the increase of total square meters of retail space in the centre of Groningen and compares this with the decrease in number of retail spaces. This comparison shows that big stores are taking over the city center, while small stores have a hard time to survive.



thanks to: Gallery Sign
year: 2013