A long-empty storefront in Anacostia is currently filled with wilted leaves, splintered wood, and musty car seats. For a blighted building in a neighborhood with many vacant properties, such a scene might not seem too unusual. But in this particular storefront near the busy intersection of Good Hope Road and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE, the debris flows to the ceiling and presses right against the bay windows, flaunting itself to pedestrians.

To some residents, the junk is an extra eyesore for an already ugly vacant building they want reopened.

To the D.C. government, it's art.

"They are supposed to be fixing Anacostia and they put this here?" asked  Teresa  Smart, a passer-by  who said her family lives in the neighborhood. "I'm at a loss for words."

The piece, "The New Migration" by  Abigail DeVille, is part of the  5x5 Project—the expansive citywide public arts project mounted by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. The biennial exhibit includes 25 pieces across all eight wards, and most will remain up through the end of December. "The New Migration" is spread across two vacant buildings and features the debris and heirlooms DeVille collected on a journey from D.C. to Jacksonville. (The second display, two doors up from the first on Good Hope Road, is a window filled with old tires and three skeletons.)