URBAN INNOVATION
& PROTOTYPES

Retail with a Mission!

Popuphood is an award-winning social enterprise est. in 2011. We design innovative solutions at the intersection of 
local economic development, retail pop-ups, 
placemaking, and marketing.

 Visit our website: Popuphood.com

"The concept of simultaneously curated retailers that open all at once removes several of the barriers to entry right away," explains Filley. - Fast Company

---

ROPE

PRAYER ROPE/INSTALLATION

KNOTS/PHOTOGRAPHY

VIDEO/PERFORMANCE

Sarah Filley presents "Prayer Rope," a project that includes a rope with evenly spaced knots along with a video of her as she ritually rotates it over her lap. In accompanying photographs she documents some distinctive knots whose titles allude to knots’ potential to symbolize the danger, dependence, and ambiguity of human relationships. Knots are perfect examples of simultaneous being/nothingness, and Filley’s approach to these objects via stark black and white imagery and an interest in the religio-sexual essence of this simple form creates a potent effect in its totality.  - Jasmine Moorhead, Founder Kroswork Gallery

SURVIVE THIS!

Resilient Cities  I Social Engagement I Urban Prototyping I Civic Hackathons I Public Art 

​An ongoing series of participatory urbanism and preparedness public art projects revealing our Catastrophile Complex.  I am an Apocaloptimist.  I draw from Apocalyptic theory to understand the feeling shared by my generation that we have already lived through some sort of end, emotionally, in large and small ways.  These projects explore the aesthetics derived from the sub-cultures of preparedness and paranoia, community and rugged individualism.

​EMERGENCY KIT

​NATIONAL SECURITY BLANKET

​ESCAPE ROUTE

​
​EMERGENCY KITS 

Concerned with the lines between preparedness and paranoia, self -sufficiency and community, and one's personal comfort weighted against National Security, This project charts the aesthetics of survivalist gear on a bell curve defined by the opposite extremes of the Do-It-Yourself “woodsy isolationist” and the ultra militaristic sky-mall executive gadgets. The populist R.E.I day Kits make up the top curve. These Emergency Kits were for the rest of us. The kits served as both practical survival kits and as a performance-teach-in platform, called "Survivalist Tupper-ware Parties" to discuss fears, ideas, practical tips, and resources in a climate of Code-Orange Level Alert Status.

---

SURVIVALIST TUPPERWARE PARTIES

Performance: "Tupperware party" was a performative infomercial-style interactive performance demonstrating over 40 recommended items researched by the "Preparedness Division" of ElkTech, an art and design creative umbrella company the artist founded in 1992 - 2008. 
​
Installation: The borrowed form of a trade show booth, complete with products and infographics, designed to prepare local residents in the event of a major disaster.

This included a series of colored pencil drawings entitled Escape Routes which complicated the narrative of a safe route with meticulous research from the USDS in a dense places like the Bay Area. The evacuation routes, rendezvous points, and nearby hospitals, traced a redline from several popular arts institutions. like the MOMA, to nearby water or helicopter zones.  

Filley's "National I.D. Card" and "Ultimate Checklist" were created as practical and conceptual laminated additional elements to highlight essential items and characteristics needed for both physical and mental well-being in survival situations. 
​
The Emergency Kits were exhibited at SFMOMA's Shadowshop, the Sonoma County Museum, The National Museum of  Science and Technology in Sweden, SMITH, Southern Exposure, Johansson Projects.

---

​NATIONAL SECURITY BLANKET

---

​ESCAPE ROUTE