DUBUQUE, Iowa – Dupaco Community Credit Union said it has partnered with Voices Productions on a new public art installation, the Telepoem Booth.
Located within Dupaco Alley at Dupaco Community Credit Union’s headquarters in the Historic Millwork District, the Telepoem Booth is an “interactive art experience which utilizes an authentic, decommissioned 1970’s-era telephone booth for the purpose of making poetry both fun and accessible to all,” Dupaco said.
Visitors can step inside the booth, look up a poem in the provided poem book, and dial the number using a rotary telephone. Visitors will then hear one of over 800 poems read to them.
Multisensory Experience
“The Telepoem Booth is multisensory – it’s visual, haptic and aural, but best of all, it’s interactive, requiring audience participation,” said Sam Mulgrew, Voices Productions producer. “It’s our way of bringing poetry to the streets and the first phase of broader poetry initiative to be rolled out by Voices Productions in the near future.”
According to Dupaco, the Telepoem Booth is the work of crater and artist Elizabeth Hellstern, who is from Arizona. With assistance from Humanities Iowa, Voices Productions acquired the booth for a 12-month installation in Dubuque and will be located at Dupaco Alley through February, 2022, the credit union said.
An Historic Home
The now renovated Dupaco Voices Building was previously home to the Historic Millwork District’s Voices of the Millwork District art festivals, which featured art shows, exhibits and murals, according to Dupaco Communication Specialist Emily Kress.
“The decade-long Voices festival created a community around the arts which drew large crowds and became a major part of the renaissance of Dubuque’s unique millwork neighborhood,” said Kress. “The art history of the Dupaco Voices Building made it a perfect fit to host the Telepoem Booth to connect the community to its art past.”
Dupaco Alley is the publicly accessible pedestrian walkway that connects East 10th and East 11th Streets at the Dupaco Voices Building in Dubuque. The walkway opened to the public in December, 2020.
The $2.6-billion Dupaco has more than 143,000 members.