The Rumsey Street Office of the Archivist
Awarded an ArtPrize Artist Seed Grant, 2015
The Rumsey Street Office of the Archivist is a hyper-local response to a specific place, The project explores the ways in which we have categorized this place over time - the way those methods of categorizations have changed, the way that the landscape has changed – both its physical form and the changing tides of its habitation. The process of categorization allows for points of disruption depending upon what information is privileged and collected. The privileging of certain information over others reflects specific attitudes of those charged with its collection and the cultural norms of the time period it was collected in.
The Rumsey Street Office of the Archivist offered a matrix in which attendees could engage. Historic photos of the 100 or so structures that originally stood on the block were presented as a greyscale wall paper. As viewers entered the Office they were invited to provide arbitrary personal information on an Visitor In-Take card. After completing the card one of the Clerks on duty scanned the back of the visitor's hand with a Pantone Capsure, the dominant color reading was added to the in-take card. In trade for their information attendees were given a sticker. During the first phase, attendees were given a monochromatic color sticker that matched one of the images on the wallpaper, which they could pair up and place over top of the image on the wall. During the second phase the stickers changed, to blanks stickers with only an address code to match to the correlating image on the wall. The blank stickers indicated that the structure had been demolished, as was the case for 80% of the block.
For the first week the collected registrations were developed into a daily short-form reports about the attendees, with the previous days report being available for review at the beginning of each day of operations and published on the SiTE:LAB 2015 Process Blog.
Historical images were gleaned from the City of Grand Rapids Archives by Rachel Lee, the Office of the Archivist Research Assistant. Site prep was assisted by Silk Finishes Painting.
Installed at SiTE:LAB - The Rumsey Street Project, Curated by Paul Amenta, 2015. The exhibition was awarded Outstanding Venue by jurors at ArtPrize 7. It was all named by Hyperallergic as "Best of 2015: Our Top 10 Exhibitions Across the United States."
The Rumsey Street Office of the Archivist is a hyper-local response to a specific place, The project explores the ways in which we have categorized this place over time - the way those methods of categorizations have changed, the way that the landscape has changed – both its physical form and the changing tides of its habitation. The process of categorization allows for points of disruption depending upon what information is privileged and collected. The privileging of certain information over others reflects specific attitudes of those charged with its collection and the cultural norms of the time period it was collected in.
The Rumsey Street Office of the Archivist offered a matrix in which attendees could engage. Historic photos of the 100 or so structures that originally stood on the block were presented as a greyscale wall paper. As viewers entered the Office they were invited to provide arbitrary personal information on an Visitor In-Take card. After completing the card one of the Clerks on duty scanned the back of the visitor's hand with a Pantone Capsure, the dominant color reading was added to the in-take card. In trade for their information attendees were given a sticker. During the first phase, attendees were given a monochromatic color sticker that matched one of the images on the wallpaper, which they could pair up and place over top of the image on the wall. During the second phase the stickers changed, to blanks stickers with only an address code to match to the correlating image on the wall. The blank stickers indicated that the structure had been demolished, as was the case for 80% of the block.
For the first week the collected registrations were developed into a daily short-form reports about the attendees, with the previous days report being available for review at the beginning of each day of operations and published on the SiTE:LAB 2015 Process Blog.
Historical images were gleaned from the City of Grand Rapids Archives by Rachel Lee, the Office of the Archivist Research Assistant. Site prep was assisted by Silk Finishes Painting.
Installed at SiTE:LAB - The Rumsey Street Project, Curated by Paul Amenta, 2015. The exhibition was awarded Outstanding Venue by jurors at ArtPrize 7. It was all named by Hyperallergic as "Best of 2015: Our Top 10 Exhibitions Across the United States."
