Alone is a site-specific photo based installation by San Mateo County native and artist Frank Boban. The artist will transform the ART KIOSK into a giant camera obscura for viewers to walk into and experience real time city happenings and actions. The glass facades will showcase four giant photographs of Redwood City locations and the surrounding area taken by Boban in 2019.

Alone represents the internal need and at times struggle of finding identity, purpose, and place in an ever-changing world.  Boban’s work seeks to rid self-imposed sanctions, some of which are driven by the need to fit in, only to find that this painful paradox is uninhabitable. “The solution cannot be found outside but instead inside—they way out, is the way in. This discovery of “being” concludes with the understanding that “existence” is possible even in a world that appears, for the most part, upside down.”  Frank Boban.

Alone transforms the ART KIOSK into a camera obscura. Images of downtown Redwood City and the Courthouse Square are projected into the kiosk with the physics of light passing through rudimentary lens produce upside down images onto the viewing screen within. The kiosk literally becomes a giant camera where viewers can walk inside and reflect on their own personal journeys. The four large photographs of a tunnel and staircases evoke feelings of journey, searching, and the unknown—never knowing what is around the corner. The image of the clock face was created after the death of the artist’s father and portrays the ephemeral journey of life. In the entrance of the kiosk, an image of a draped window glows with hope and comforting providing a calm feeling that everything will be all right. The duality of this doorway image coincides as viewers step into the darkness with the idea that finding oneself doesn’t involve searching but rather internal self-reflection.

Visitors may meet the artist and enter the camera obscura during the following hours:

Mon-Tues-Fri  5pm to 7:30

Wed-Thur  12pm to 5pm

Sat-Sun  1pm to 7:30