Artist Refreshes Almost Invisible Boxes in Downtown Culver City

Published on July 25, 2024

Visual artist Joshua Callaghan has just completed a “refresh” of his existing series of wrapped utility boxes titled Almost Invisible Boxes throughout downtown plaza and surrounding area. Callaghan’s project, which was created in 2004 and has had updates over the years, is very popular and recognized internationally.

"It’s a real pleasure to be back here 20 years later and what has been created here is this very lively public space and it’s great to be a part of that,” Callaghan said. “I’ve come here over the years, and really examine the landscape and try to intervene in it. It’s remarkable how much it’s changed. It becomes almost philosophical on some level in that you try to do something in the City and the City is just a creature; it’s alive. It immediately assimilates when you do and changes it.” 

Callaghan takes photographs of spaces and plants surrounding the utility boxes, edits the digital images in Photoshop, prints them on photographic vinyl, and then adheres the designs at life-size onto the boxes as wraps with the help of Salome Xochipiltecatl. The resulting containers produce all kinds of distortions of perspective, scale, and perception of space.

“It really does bring the fore how the dynamism of reality versus the image that’s captured," he said. "And just the churn and flux of change. So immediately when these go up, the landscape around them is changing.

For this iteration, Callaghan has attached his original designs to three newly identified utility boxes in addition to the original 14 ones, bringing the count to a total of 17 to date. The utility box in front of Fire Station 1 and the three across the street from there make their debut.

Callaghan has always been interested in investigating the everyday life from an anthropological point of view. He notes, “the strange juxtaposition of subject with its life size photographic representation is an outcome of these works. Time is frozen in the photographic murals while the world around them constantly changes and moves. In this way, the wraps become small meditations on the living nature of the city, and the relentless forward motion of time.”

The vinyl wraps, which are durable, graffiti-resistant, and can endure bad weather and direct sunlight up to 5 years, are on display until the next iteration is determined. 

"I take a lot of pleasure in people noticing or appreciating them. I’m curious what people themselves think, I like to get the feedback of the people—what do they think, where does it take their mind.”

Watch the video below to see the artwork.