Repository
The images in “Repository” record cars and the personal belongings that have been left behind after accidents. The wrecked automobiles were towed to the block where I lived in Brooklyn. This project continues my examination of violated boundaries and psychologically charged spaces. Car accidents indicate a loss of control and rupture feelings of safety and security. The damaged cars, like injured bodies, point to the potential for trauma and challenge feelings around mortality. The residue of everyday life – books, food, stickers, talisman – signal the expired moment of normalcy before trauma. Through a voyeuristic lens the material traces take on a heightened resonance and metaphoric presence.
Displayed in the form of a calendar, the beautiful images become more ambiguous. Calendars often depict sublime landscapes and images of desire such as expensive cars. This calendar displays moments of trauma and fatality that we cannot anticipate and which calendars do not usually commemorate. By omitting numbers and years on the calendar, I point to the altered experience of time surrounding traumatic events.