BEHIND THE HAVOC IN HOLYOKE CENTER

Is it a building site? An exhibition? A film? For the moment, the Holyoke Center Arcade is housing all three.

When Harvard Planning and Real Estate set out to rebuild the arcade's entrance, Scott Rothkopf '99 devised a plan to install students' artwork on the barriers of the construction site. He chose three artists--Matt Saunders '97, Yuh-Shioh Wong '99 and Emily Hass, a graduate student of design--and the project's only remaining problem was a lack of funds. "We couldn't spend any money at all," says Saunders, who based his piece on a 1940s film of an acrobat biting through a chain. The installation includes one large painting and four peepholes. "Construction barriers are strange things," Saunders comments. "You always want to see what's inside." Indeed, Rothkopf's goal was to give passersby something to look at beyond the construction. Or, perhaps, on the construction--Wong painted her abstract piece on the site itself. Thus far, the project has had a positive reception; Saunders notes that "the construction workers seem to really like it."