GATHERING PLACE, BY THE WATER

Transcription

1 nathaniel stern GATHERING PLACE, BY THE WATER Gathering Place, by the water is a dispersed installation of ten to twenty rectangular and/or cylindrical containers, hand-made of acrylic and wood, and suspended from the ceiling at different heights throughout the library. Each is filled with water, sand, rocks or other found materials from public parks around the East Side, and labeled with its origin. These pieces reflect, refract and frame their materials, the surrounding library, and the outside environment, accenting and amplifying how we gather place. What is an archive? What does it do? A library is an archive. It is a framing of history and culture. It is not only filled with text - in its many forms - but also provides con-text, and meaning, through how we use it. The library is alive, is itself archival. It is constantly updated, consistently aging, and it asks, How do we frame the past, in the present? How do we study, what do we know and how do we know it, as we plan for and design the future? Libraries and archives are not unlike works of art: they highlight and amplify aspects of who and how we are. The East Side library will be a gathering place (a space for the past and present), which is also always gathering place (an action that tends toward the future). We are this archive: aging and yet and full of potential. Gathering Place, by the water frames and magnifies both the archive (as thing and idea), and the East Side (as place - both social and geographic). I take the title from the translations of the Potawatomi and Ojibwe words some believe led to our city s name: both minwaking and ominowakiing mean gathering place [by the water]. Like Milwaukee and the East Side, my gathering [of] place is by the water, is made up of water (in several of its containers), and can only exist because of the water surrounding it. This work is a collection of matter and things that relate to the concepts and cultures that make, and are made of, the East Side. I plan to collect materials that support life and society and potential, but to use them without either privileging any singular understanding of Milwaukee and its people, or anthropomorphizing these materials. Gathering Place calls attention to our local relationships with water and land, parks and beaches, our surroundings and each other - and

2 nathaniel stern these relations are what give the work its meaning. It is not a metaphorical piece, and there is nothing representational in its frames. The installation is, rather, a material archive of the East Side, a past and a future, a text and its context; we make it meaningful. I will work with Milwaukee-based sculptor and furniture-maker, Joseph Reimann Weber, on the design and production of my containers. He has previously produced water-tight acrylic boxes for art installations, and surrounded them with Shaker-styled wood frames; I will work on a similar design. These materials mirror the glass of the new library, as well as the reclaimed wood from its predecessor. The cylindrical designs, if used (one- to two-inch diameter, up to several feet long) would play off the columns in the space, while the rectangles (one- to two-inch depth, about two feet by one foot) would continue the library s use of framing throughout its space. Between ten and twenty of these would be suspended at different heights from the ceiling with steel cables - another nod to the columns of the library, as well as the industrial history of the East Side. Up to four gatherings will be hosted, where I ll invite the general public to bring what they have themselves gathered from around the city, for potential posterity. Each box will be labeled with its origin ( Bradford Beach ) in hand-written Sharpie marker, and will be accompanied by an old-styled library catalog card with other information: date and time, original material, collector(s), geolocation in place of a Dewey Decimal number, other relevant details (perhaps shorts texts by the local archivists). These may be attached to the back of the containers, or displayed somewhere else in the library, with a map of the entire archive. All containers will be permanently sealed, air tight, before they are hung - any aging or decomposition inside of them are a part of the art and archive. I intend to work directly with the library staff and HGA on decisions for where each of these containers should go. Their heights and spacing, relationship to lighting and windows, desks and walls, should be integrated with the flows and geometries of the current design, but also use framing, refractions and reflections in order to connect people and space, inside and outside. Some may be above the walk-in desk, filled with sand from a beach, and distorting light from the poetry corner; others could be very close to the windows and at eye-level, filled with water from the river, framing the activity on North Avenue for those on the inside, and library movement for outside passersby; still others could contain slowly biodegrading plant life and rocks from a park, perhaps at an angular line of site between comfy chairs and computers, and the stained glass skirting from the older building. Gathering Place, by the water is a living archive for and of the East mock up of one container in a library rendering The containers will be customdesigned acrylic with Shaker-styled frames, if possible using reclaimed wood. They re labelled with marker. Side. At stake are the ways we relate to and understand our place : historically and geographically, materially and conceptually, and as we continue to gather, for the future.

3 GATHERING PLACE, BY THE WATER nathaniel stern Image List SternN1.jpg These are rough sketches of potential container designs for archiving East Side materials, with Sharpie marker labels. They are acrylic and wood (preferably reclaimed wood from the old library site, but if not, a similar color and grain). The cylindrical design will be one to two inches wide, two to four feet long, and will additionally have a small wood frame for support (not shown). The rectangular designs are one to two inches deep, about two feet by one foot - but this may change as we see what will work best in the space, and with the materials chosen. All will be hung via steel cabling from the ceiling. SternN2.jpg This is a modified photograph of one of Joseph Reimann Weber s actualized Shaker tables holding water (he will be subcontracted to work with us on design and fabrication). The original photo showed a table that was 90-degrees clockwise from what is shown, with legs, and had no writing on it. I ve used this image to demonstrate Weber s skill and the design s elegance, but then modified it to give a greater aesthetic sense of what I m going for in the library. SternN3.jpg This is one of my sketches placed within one of HGA s library s renderings. While not to scale (sizes are still flexible), the cylindrical design plays off the columns of the library and the glass panels of the multipurpose room. When framed in wood, this would also speak back to the dropped wood ceiling reclaimed from the original library. The rocks from Riverside Park would highlight public spaces on the East Side, and their muted tones would play off the colors of hardcover books in the library, while their shape and texture would mirror the stone and stained glass skirting opposite them (not shown). SternN4.jpg Again, this is one of my sketches placed within one of HGA s library s renderings. Containers will never be low enough that anyone could accidentally walk into them, but some might be low and against the windows to frame inside/outside activity for passersby, or, shown here, at an angle between eye level and high, near-ceiling features in the current building design. Here the point of view is from someone looking up through a container with water from the Milwaukee River, and at the stained glass feature beyond it; the viewer is standing in the computer and periodicals area, with the corner of North Avenue and Cramer Street behind them.

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