Art in Every Space by Mayor of Alexandria, Alyia Gaskins
“What it Means to Me” original artwork by Angela Congleton on display at Art in Every Space kickoff event on Wednesday, July 8th 2026 at AV Actions
Mayor Gaskins launched a pilot this summer called Art in Every Space — original work by local artists, hung inside Alexandria businesses. Real estate offices, coffee shops, coworking spaces. Places you'd go for an entirely different reason than to discover beautiful original works of art. It runs through September 30. I'm one of the artists featured, matched with a space through Robin Jordan, who's been building this thing out since she first brought the idea to the mayor's office.
That's closer to what I actually want from putting work into the world. Much of my practice lives with my family's archive — inherited photographs, memory, lineage — material that asks something of the person looking at it, but shouldn't require an art-world fluency to ask it. A lot of what gets offered to artists at my stage can be exposure dressed up as opportunity — a repost, a feature, a "great for your platform." A gallery selects for people who already decided to come look. A coffee shop doesn't select for anything.
Whoever walks in, walks in.
This is a business owner deciding to let a stranger's painting live on their wall for a few months, and a resident encountering it while they're doing something else entirely — getting coffee, signing a lease — with no framing device telling them how to feel about it. No wall text. No opening reception energy. Just the work, doing whatever it does on its own.
Accessibility in the arts is often discussed in terms of cost or physical access, but I think it's also about permission. It's about removing the feeling that you have to know the right vocabulary, understand the right references, or belong to a certain world before you're allowed to have an opinion about what you're looking at. Some of the most meaningful conversations I've had about my work haven't happened in galleries—they've happened with people who simply stumbled across it and responded honestly.
That's what excites me about this project. It treats art less like a destination and more like part of the civic landscape—something woven into everyday life rather than separated from it.
You don't have to decide to go see art. Art gets to come meet you where you already are.
If someone pauses for a moment on their way to a meeting or while waiting for their coffee and feels seen, remembers something, or simply becomes curious, then the work has already done more than ask to be looked at. It's become part of someone's ordinary day.
My piece “The Promise” will hang on the walls of Cameron Cafe at 4911 Brenman Park Dr, Alexandria, VA
If you go see it, send a photo!
