Home transcends the physical structures we inhabit. It extends beyond the tangible with which one visits realms of memory, connection, and aspiration. “Echoes of Home: Relational Memories and Urban Futures” is the first gallery exhibition by Occupy Vacancy, a public art initiative known for transforming vacant city lots into poignant installations that contemplate St. Louis’s vernacular architecture, settlement history, and blight within the city’s Northside. “Echoes of Home” invites the audience to reflect on urban landscapes and their life cycles. Through an assemblage and abstraction of architectural elements, the artists explore how memories of place evoke collective reflection and imagination of our rapidly changing cityscapes.
Occupy Vacancy is a public art initiative co-founded by artists Brianna McIntyre (born 1992, St. Louis, MO) and André Fuqua (born 1993, St. Louis, MO). The artists use sculpture to reimagine the physical landscape of St. Louis City by activating vacant city-owned lots as sites for neighborhood specific public art that reflect upon race, settlement, and historic preservation on St. Louis’s Northside. The synergy of their combined individual practices, within the scope of Occupy Vacancy, promotes collaboration between art, design, engineering, community engagement, and neighborhood development.
Brianna is a visual artist, interior architect, and Occupy Vacancy’s Creative Director. Grounded in restorative justice and relational aesthetics, her design and installation-based practice addresses labor, space, and beauty politics through the lens of a Black woman. Her fabrication expertise and material efficacy, rooted in fiber art and object design, aid her in imbuing charged objects with personal narratives. McIntyre is an alum of the School of the Art institute of Chicago (2017) and studied International Relations and Development at University of Maryland College Park from 2011-2013. McIntyre’s work has been exhibited at Northern-Southern Gallery, Austin (2021); Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2020, 2019); Wrightwood 659, Chicago (2019); and Clough Hanson Gallery, Memphis (2018). McIntyre was the inaugural Wayfinding Fellow of Institutional Architecture at the Luminary, St. Louis (2023-24), an invited presenter at the African American Craft Summit at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Washington, DC (2020) and an artist-in-residence at Women & Their Work Gallery, Austin (2020). McIntyre is a board member at Project Fielding, a teacher’s collective in Chicago that teaches woodshop and power tool literacy to femme-identified and gender-variant youth and adults.
André is a visual artist, doctoral researcher, and Occupy Vacancy’s Design Engineer. Fuqua’s work includes sculpture, photography, and printmaking and draws influence from his Black heritage, land history, architecture, and found objects. His practice explores power and perception as they relate to structure and place. His scientific research is centered on sustainable architecture and infrastructure renewal. Fuqua is a two-time alum of Columbia University (2015, 2018) and also a graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2016). Fuqua’s work has been exhibited in galleries and institutions throughout the US including Northern-Southern Gallery, Austin (2021); McCombs School of Business at University of Texas at Austin (2021); Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans (2020); GrayDUCK Gallery, Austin (2020), and Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago (2016). He is currently a 2023-24 Corridor Construction Program Public Artist for the City of Austin.
Both artists live and work between Austin, Texas and St. Louis, MO.
