Hearts are Aglow in Akron

Akron Beacon Journal
By Craig Webb
Published: March 11, 2017

Akron can now wear its heart on its storefront.

And depending on how much love you show for our fair city, the hearts will grow and grow and grow and grow and grow.

Five Zelda-like hearts -- yes, like the video game -- were installed this week in the windows of the Akron-Summit County Public Library along South Main Street.

The temporary art installation is part of the Knight Foundation-funded Curated Storefront project that is putting artwork into empty storefronts in town.

One heart at the downtown library is already aglow and the others should follow suit whenever a certain number of tweets with the hashtag “iheartakron” are sent out.

How many tweets are needed to set each heart ablaze is a secret, as is how long it actually takes to jump-start them. But once they start going off, said Courtney Cable, who is helping to coordinate the effort, like the video game, there are hidden surprises that light up as another level of, well, love for Akron is achieved.

The hearts are the work of artists Markus and Margarita Benitez-Vogl and have been modified from a previous appearance at Cleveland’s? IngenuityFest.

“The [tweets with the hashtag] are a great opportunity for people around Akron to show other people around the world what they love about the city,” Cable said.

The whole point of the art installations in the otherwise empty downtown storefronts is to add some “visual excitement” to Akron’s streets and hopefully, Cable said, to get workers out of the tunnels and skywalks and back to walking the sidewalks in the city.

“We want to show that there is real potential in these empty spaces,” she said.