Driving along 30th and Fern Street in South Park, the tree-lined streets frame businesses from another era: Big Kitchen, Shoe Repair Javier Rojas, Fern Street Coin Laundry. By the time you arrive at The Whistle Stop, a long-standing neighborhood dive bar, you’re welcomed by a small retail corridor of three clothing shops and a record store.
You might stop and gander, but only if you were lucky would you stumble upon An Interval, a monthly, three-hour-long art exhibition in a driveway courtesy of The Vibe Vintage Gallery. It is the definition of “hidden in plain sight.”
South Park is no stranger to alternative art projects. Just look to Fern Street Circus and Trash Lamb art gallery, closed in 2025. Now, An Interval is holding down the fort. Thinking like a true pioneer, reinventing culture born out of urban void, An Interval makes-due with what it has, enlivening a kind of DIY spirit in the name of building new experiences.
“When I first moved to North Park, I would see all these empty spaces and business and storefronts and would just dream up what I would do if I had access to this space,” said Emma Catacutan, curator of An Interval.
“I love the spirit of, if you’re complaining about the lack of something, to figure out how to make it happen,” she added modestly.
For one weekend a month, on the uneven pavement adjacent to the sidewalk, trash cans are moved aside to stage an elaborate outdoor art exhibition. Artwork is hung on walls built from reused wooden pallets. An entire village of artists, art supporters, friends, lovers, strangers and neighbors converge for this special moment to shine some light on newly made artworks and, just as importantly, to shape an experience together.
“There’s a sincerity to the ‘pop-up,’” said Mika Castañeda, co-founder of Harvest & Gather and one of Catacutan’s collaborators. “It’s practical, strategic and insurgent. It refuses a (museum) model that is very visibly failing.”
It all began in Pasadena, where Catacutan and her collaborator Jon Pylypchuk began hosting exhibitions out of a lumber yard. “We had one exhibition before my illness got really bad,” said Catacutan.
Soon after their initial launch, she was diagnosed with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), a nervous system condition that led to a 7-month pause in exhibitions and a turn away from the lumber yard. Now she’s returned to graceful and thoughtful curation, but not without lots of help.
“Each exhibition is as much about the people around it as the physical event,” she said. “Each one has its own support beyond me which is what inspired me to curate this upcoming show.”
Roll Credits
An Interval’s next exhibition “Roll Credits,” slated for Sunday, Oct. 4, signals anything but an ending. Instead, it’s a gesture toward handing off authorship and moving toward collaboration.
As part of Rolling Credits, Casteñeda has coordinated a collaborative sculptural series with artists Walker Hewitt, Cat Gunn and Catacutan.
“Mika has this collection of vintage gay porn, trinket boxes and a bunch of items they’ve collected from bars,” said Catacutan. “It’s sort of a different release of authorship.”
Given the objects provided, the three collaborators created “assemblage” compositions of civilization’s refuse, melded together through streams of consciousness and a touch of queer sensibility.
Although participation and shared experiences are prioritized, Roll Credits also emphasizes individual originality.
“I don’t think there’s a single shared aesthetic to the work necessarily. I think that trying to unify them into one resolved aesthetic almost undermines the intention of the work itself,” Catacutan said. “But, as I’m putting it together, I see a lot of connections between preservation and collective imagination and proximity.”
Roll Credit artists Neville Greene, Walker Hewitt and Jade Carson share an affinity for visibly pixellated images derived from digital processing as well as halftone dots historically indebted to the art of screenprinting. The work of artist couple Taif Albarainkani and Danny Mizrahi evokes similar feelings of playfulness and casual elegance through their loose handed and effortless painting styles.
“The whole exhibition is about how all of the individual pieces remain their own expression within the network itself,” Catacutan said. “I’m interested in what a healthy ecosystem between artists looks like and how each practice sustains and inspires the next.”
Additionally, machine learning engineer Riley Tavasolli will present artwork where viewers’ physical interactions with his piece incite different sounds, which will emanate throughout the exhibition.
All Hands on Deck
With Roll Credits, Catatucan hopes to lean into a different perception of “community,” reclaiming a term that’s become ubiquitous in the world of museums and nonprofit grant applications.
“I think we’re experiencing a growing shift in community care as opposed to self care and we should listen to that because there’s a real need for belonging and connection,” she said. “As words like ‘community,’ ‘third space’ and ‘self care’ become more popular, over-saturated and used for profit, what specificity is lost?”
Catacutan’s ethics as a curator focus not just on showcasing artwork and talent, but also rethinking what it means to foster a thriving creative community. For her, that looks like an all-hands-on-deck approach, where shared ownership, emotional support and even collaboration take center stage.
“I really respect Emma and the labor she’s taking on. It’s a labor I’m familiar with and it’s inspiring,” said Castañeda. “Sometimes in San Diego, community can feel scarce, but one of the best ways to show up is to just show up and bear witness.”
Catacutan’s efforts don’t stop at visual art curation. She also hosts the jazz concert series Jazz Music and Jam in collaboration with her partner Ryan Woods taking place in North Park’s Bird Park.
“It hasn’t been so emotionally exhausting because when the events occur they fill my cup,” she said. “And I think the help I’ve had is both physical and emotional.”
The South Park ecosystem where An Interval thrives might even be perfect for an extended duration. The block caters to a full night out of food, drinks and even dancing after the opening if thy heart desires.
“People also hang out in the neighborhood afterwards,” said Catacutan. “They’ll go have dinner at The Rose or go across the street to Whistle Stop.”
An Interval’s Roll Credits opens Sunday, Oct. 4 from 4 to 7 p.m. at 2227 Fern St.