Kelly Zhang

Kelly Zhang

In my sketches, I wanted to capture how the people in the area and lights in the mall shaped my experience—essentially creating “illusions” of what the spaces entailed.

On Newbury St., stores were relatively removed from the street; many had stairs leading up or down to the entrance, creating a barrier between potential customers and the shop. Since I didn’t enter most stores, my perception of what kind of stores were there was heavily influenced by what people carried. For example, near ice cream stores, people strolled down the streets with giant ice cream cones, creating the sense that it was a dessert-heavy district. Further down the block, where there were more clothing stores, the presence of many shopping bags made me feel like I was in a mall. Upon referring to a list of Newbury St. shops, I realized that there were many more stores than I noticed, because the things people carried created an illusion that those objects—Ben & Jerry’s cones, bubble tea, Nike bags, etc.—were all that mattered.

The Prudential center offered a very different atmosphere, because the stores were more prominently intruding on my experience. The first thing I noticed was that many stores had very white, fluorescent lights that felt artificial and almost obnoxious, in contrast to the open space on Newbury St. In addition, while on Newbury St. people carried their ice cream as they strolled leisurely along the street, people in the Prudential rushed back and forth with mostly shopping bags, and those that did have snacks, such as frozen yogurt, clumped together on the benches in the center of the mall. Compared to the open street, the Prudential felt more confined and unnatural, despite offering similar types of stores as Newbury St.