A SHIPPING CONTAINER PACKED WITH WOODEN CRATES

EACH CRATE PACKED BY AN ARTIST WITH CONTENTS THAT “REPRESENT” A WAY TO CONSTRUCT A CITY WE KNOW AND/OR CONTAINS “PLANS” FOR THIS CITY

(thinking about each crate as a city)
(thinking about legos)
(each crate in relation to other crates)
(re-read calvino’s invisible cities)

each of us creates a crate. each crate is a small world. a model, a snapshot, a glimpse, a window, a lens, a frame, etc. of a specific place. this will be a self-contained world. a description of place. history, future, constructs, maps, plans, patterns.

this crate will be shipped, transported, displaced. this set of ideas, this way of life will cross borders, languages, time zones, mountains,, plains, seas, valleys, cities, states, provinces, territories. it will transgress all. it will not be contained but will excrete itself.

arriving at a gallery space it will escape from the crate. it will be placed in a new context. it will be juxtaposed with other models from within their crates. it will live side-by-side with each world in the shipping container and the gallery space when it is unpacked. and it will live with itself as it always does. waiting. waiting for something to happen. it will show its similarities, its differences. it will examine its own properties, its proclivities. it will discover formal sameness. it will parade cosmetic improvements. it will proudly display its currency. its current thought. its up to the minute presence. its now-ness through its contents of artifacts, tools, and instruments.

but then the audience will be asked to, invited to, encouraged to reconstruct these parts into a new vision, revision. a new city will emerge from these parts. what will be discarded? what will be pirated? what will be copied? what will be stolen? will a participant working on one city negotiate with someone working on another city? what elements will travel from one crate to the next? what competing visions will wage battle over territory, space, resources, the hearts, minds and souls of its constituency? will new models and systems emerge? will old patterns be reinforced or reinvented? who will control these visions? will it centralize, compartmentalize, disintegrate, conglomerate? will disparate voices unite or will competing fragments emerge , rise and fall?

and so, the crates will have many lives. a start, a plan, a birth. flux. some crates contents may disappear, flowing to the other crates. perhaps they start as raw materials only (constructed by each artist) and a plan or set of instruction packed into the crate. these materials and directions are to be configured by the viewers/audience upon arrival. the contents will be sorted out, organized, distributed, arranged as prescribed as best as possible.

then after some time they will be open sources. unprotected. malleable. the public steps in. tools will be made available to the public. to re-imagine the city in a box. the original configuration changes. hybridity. there will be adaptation and innovation. there will be chaos, waste, revolution. perhaps, eventually, there will be resolution. or at least stasis. some cities may be forgotten. or used and abused. back to waiting. hoping. and then they will be re-packed. re-situated. some reconstituted contents or growth will mean the need for a new bigger crate. returned to their origins or to a new context. a new gallery space. a living city. constant re-formulation.