April 27, 2023

Rebecca Jampol: Artist Advocacy, Newark, and Raising Daughters

45 minutes

On Season 3, Episode 4 of The Art Career Podcast, Emily McElwreath interviews Rebecca Jampol.

Rebecca Pauline Jampol is the Co-Director of Project for Empty Space, a public art curator, and designer based in Newark, NJ. Her interdisciplinary creative practice focuses on cultivating impactful social dialogue and change. She explores social activism and empowerment through a range of methods that range from curating gallery exhibitions and publishing to public art programs.
Ms. Jampol is a serial self-starter. In 2010, she launched her first major business Solo(s) Project House, which provided studios and exhibition space for local artists. This innovative model set the stage for her next venture, Project for Empty Space (PES), a nonprofit dedicated to fostering intersectional cultural discourse. Since 2013, she has grown this ‘third space’ endeavor, which has now become a staple in the larger Newark arts scene, and a community unto itself for multidisciplinary artists and a space for social discourse, activism, and change.
In addition to running PES, Ms. Jampol has led an array of significant public art programs both as an organizer/curator and a designer. Over the last decade, she has overseen large projects including Portals, Newark (2016), the longest mural on the east coast, approx. 1.34 miles Gateways to Newark (2016), Four Corners Public Arts (2019 - 2022), Mayor Ras J. Baraka’s Community Ground Murals (2020), and more recently Audible’s Newark Artist Collaboration (2021+). She co-designed a large scale project at the Bronx Museum entitled See Me, an interactive project about visibility, intersectionality, and identity that kicked off the Museum's 50th anniversary. She also organized and chaired the design team for a new initiative for residents without addresses called Newark Hope Village, a low-barrier shelter community built from repurposed shipping containers and transformed into a therapeutic service-oriented community.
Outside of her role as an arts nonprofit director and public art curator/designer, Ms. Jampol is also core faculty at Rutgers-Newark, her Alma Mater. She lives and works in Newark, NJ with her fierce four-year old daughter Adele-Rae.
Rebecca Jampol’s work can be seen at projectforemptyspace.org, gatewaystonewark.org, fourcornerspublicarts.org and newarkartistcollaboration.com.