On Hamburger Square

Created for Elsewhere Museum, On Hamburger Square is a community portrait of Greensboro’s Hamburger Square told through the stories of its citizens exploring the past, present, and future of the city’s historic crossroads.

Augmented Reality links montages of community audio interviews to objects in the square such as signs, buildings and monuments. Participants explore the square using a map and a mobile device. When they find and frame the objects with their screen, a related audio montage plays. In this way, the project mixes scavenger hunt play and documentary inquiry, to invite the audience to explore the area while thinking about the history and communities that intersect there.

“In her app- and web-based audio tour, On Hamburger Square, New York-based artist Samara Smith made it her mission to understand the ins and outs of this city space, and created a multi-layered experience based on extensive interviews.”

— Hidden Histories of Greensboro, Fabric of Freedom, National Folk Festival

On Hamburger Square was part of Elsewhere Museum‘s South Elm Projects. Funded by ArtPlace America, South Elm Projects brought 15 national artists and collectives together with neighbors to create public artworks and programming in alleyways and greenspaces in the South Elm neighborhood of downtown Greensboro, North Carolina. The project aimed to further civic engagement, public commons and urban wilds in advance of and with development.