To close out the annual Stamford Innovation Week, community members say they had to get creative in Covid times to bring people together safely to celebrate. A group of thirty transformed three floors of a parking garage into a drive through interactive art exhibit.
Stamford Innovation Week included conferences around innovation technology and entrepreneurship. They usually celebrate the end with a community event filled with food trucks and live art. This year, building manager of Stamford Town Center David Stolzenbach helped them create Auto-Adventure so people could drive through an exhibit while social distancing.
“We take you back and time, we give you a current vision of what is going on today and what will be in years to come,” said Stolzenbach.
Fog machines sprayed out at cars entering the garage. Each floor had flashing lights to represent a time warp.
“As people arrive through their time warp tunnel, they will see an obstacle course which is very representative of 2020,” said Stolenback.
Men in hazmat suits represented the first Covid testing sites. Fire jugglers represented the wildfires out west. The floor above was dedicated to the 80s. The floor below was designed to signifyl the future.
Program director for Stamford Innovation Jessica Bacigalupi said although they couldn’t throw their usual party with food trucks and artists, they knew they couldn’t skip a year because of the pandemic.
“We are about entrepreneurship,” said Bacigalupi. “We are about innovation. If we took a year off what would that say about how innovative we are?”
Bacigalupi said they consider art one of the finest innovations and a great way to bring the community together.