TREPHONOS

TréPhonos is a collaborative and generative public art sculpture created to preserve and share the rich history of Third Ward a historic African-American neighborhood located in Houston Texas. The collaboration was led by artist Jeanette Degollado along with Moonpapas (artists Matt Fries & Julian Luna) and the Third Ward community. It is a series of 3 payphone sculptures installed on sidewalks outside of 3 Black-owned businesses in Third Ward. Each payphone sculpture is made of a decommissioned payphone that was hacked, then filled with recorded audio curated by one of three community Ambassador-Curators. The visual artists worked collectively with the Ambassador-Curators to fabricate, design, and mechanically engineer each sculpture. They were then reintroduced back into the public as permanent interactive sculptures that are free to use. Each payphone sculpture contains one of these themes: Third Ward institutional history Ambassador and curated by Kofi Taharka, Third Ward local music Ambassador and curated by Sunny Smith, and Third Ward field recording Ambassador and curated by Marc Furi.