Monday, May 29, 2006

CSAW (see-saw!), Houston, Texas







Studio Q at Commerce Street Artists' Warehouse. 
Click here for virtual tour.

Residency, May 15th-June 10th, 2006


I met Teresa O'Connor, the residency co-ordinator, in Chicago during the City show.  She was in town for her own exhibition at Schopf Gallery and we met at my opening.  This place is huge and, thankfully, airconditioned.  Showers and other plumbed stuff is down the hall.  The front half is a great exhibition space, a little intimidating.

Dream Houses of the Displaced

The project is a comment on the prevalence of 'top-down' design
projects dealing with the rebuilding of New Orleans after the 2005
Hurricane season and a critique of the relevance of these projects
to those affected. I interviewed a small group of individuals that
lost their homes and created bizarre, fantasy architectural models
as manifestations of their stories, their housing desires, and my
own subjective interpretations.

I conceptualized it as a psuedo-sociology/design/ethnographic project, basing the design of the models on the interview transcripts.   I'm borrowing devices of the ethnographic interview and oral history gathering. I made contact with the interviewees through social networks, not intending to present a comprehensive data set, but rather a sampling of individuals who have similar backgrounds or lifestyles to me, how they are coping and how they would like to frame their experiences.

Eddie Bernard in glass artist in New Orleans, currently working there to rebuild the community studio that was destroyed. I first learned about him through his blog on the CERF site (Craft Emergency Relief Fund) and we met through a mutual friend.

Rosalind Welch is a chef and food stylist, now living with her husband in Galveston. They are renting an apartment there through a friend of mine in Kent, Ohio

Chad Chadwick is a photography/video stylist now living with his girlfriend in Austin. We met through a mutual friend.

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