Leasing agent focusing on Columbus’ first selfie museum
Danielle White was hard at work. Dressed in a pink tank top and sweats, and with Drake playing in the background, the 24-year-old Downtown resident used a glue gun to put up another white, decorative wall panel. Three of her friends were busy drilling and painting other parts of the room.
The group was transforming the 2,000 square-foot space at 1555 N. 4th Street in the University District into #Viral Selfie Museum, which will be the first art gallery of its kind in the
city. The museum opens Saturday.
White said the museum will feature 19 themed booths where friends will be able to take the perfect photos for Instagram or have a private session to hold a photo shoot. Booths will include the “Airplane Aisle” where the entire space is pink, including the plane seats. Then there’s the flower booth, with sunflowers and daisies on the walls and a yellow bicycle in the middle, and the chess room with life-sized chess pieces.
“It’s a fun space that people of all ages can come and have fun,” White said. “If companies want to come here for team building, we do that as well.
“This is the first thing like this in Columbus, so I think people will really love it.”
The “made-for-instagram” art installations have become wildly popular in the last few years, with museums opening up in New York City, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Chicago. According to Wired Magazine, the trend began in 2012 with the opening of the pop-up installation Rain Room at London’s Barbican Center.
Smaller cities are starting to get in on the fun, too, such as The Selfie Space in Youngstown. Co-owner Nicole Purington opened the museum in March and said business has been great. Booths at the space include an optical illusion room, a wall made of sequins and an infinity room with mirrors from the floor to the ceiling lit up with LED lights that can be adjusted to produce millions of hues
“We’ve been doing a lot of parties and we just started renting out selfie walls for weddings and showers and that has really taken off,” she said.
Purington believes selfie museums are becoming popular because each one has its own style
“Every single one you go to, even if you go to two in the same city, they’re gonna be completely different,” she said. “And having gone through the pandemic, everyone has been living their lives on social media, so we just want to give them a fun place to incorporate their social media life pre- and postpandemic.”
White said that she got the inspiration for #Viral Selfie Museum by looking online and seeing selfie museums in Los Angeles and Atlanta. She visited a selfie museum in Michigan earlier this year.
Getting into the art business is a new experience for White, whose background is in real estate. She is the owner of A&D Properties and Investment Services and Cbus Short Term Rentals.
“I used to be the leasing agent for this building,” she said. “I leased the apartments upstairs as well as other places around campus.”
White said she usually comes in the building at 9 a.m. and doesn’t leave until 9 p.m. as she creates art for the selfie space. Friends and White’s mother, Darnella White, come in for a few hours in the evenings to help.
White mostly uses Etsy, Facebook Marketplace, Amazon and thrift stores to find art and props. She drove to Cincinnati after finding someone on Facebook who was selling the airplane seats. White then reupholstered the chairs and painted them pink.
“For some of the props, I outsource it to other companies that make it,” she said. “I don’t know how to make a lifesized lollipop and I don’t want to try.”
To keep customers safe during their visit, White will only allow 30 people for the 60-minute time slots. Guests are recommended to wear masks and there will be hand sanitizer stations throughout the museum.
White said she is most excited to see the finished product.
“I’m excited to walk in and see it’s done,” she said, laughing. “It started off as an idea in my mind at like, 2 a.m. to actually being real life . ... I’m excited to see it. Even just seeing the walls being put up made me so happy.” mwalker@dispatch.com @micah_walker701