what happens after wal-mart?

Wal-Mart has a tendency to move into a neighborhood and completely decimate the local stores and economy. And when they leave (which they often do, setting their sites on cheaper digs), they litter the landscape with giant "big box" stores--large empty buildings that can be daunting to reconfigure. Artist Julia Christensen has been documenting the myriad ways local communities have begun to do just that:



from the website: www.bigboxreuse.com

"Julia Christensen began investigating How Communities are Re-Using the Big Box in January of 2004. Throughout the spring and summer of 2004, she traveled over 17,000 miles around the country in her car, visiting the sites and meeting the people who are transforming empty Wal-Mart buildings, K-Mart buildings, Target buildings and more into useful structures for
their community. She has been collecting a growing collection of photographs, interviews, stories, and documents relating to the renovations, and has been giving presentations in communities about how towns are dealing with this common situation. She continues to travel around the country, visiting towns and giving lectures about the reuse of big box buildings in the United States. Julia is also exhibiting photography and installing video/sound/new media work from field recordings collected throughout her travels. In the summer of 2005 she will continue to visit sites of renovated big box buildings around the United States. She is currently working on a book about the project."

Yes, Virginia, there is life after Wal-Mart!