Artwork
Artist Statement: As an artist, I am often drawn to institutional spaces and visual archives in order to consider how architecture indicates power. My response to A&E Local Stories began when I found archival photographs and a hand-drawn blueprint of the Carnegie Library in the digital collection at the Library of Congress. I was immediately curious about the blueprint because it reminded me of the board game Clue. In contrast, the 1930s archival photographs of the building’s columns were stately and imposing. To tell the story of a structure that was built, torn down and then rebuilt, I knew I needed to depict transformation but through a contemporary lens. I documented the blueprint like a mechanical eye scanning over an image, or a video game player moving through a virtual space. I repeated and layered the photographs of the columns on top of the moving blueprint. The columns then fall away, seeming to tumble over the edge into the real columned sculptures beneath the Breen Smith billboard. Finally, all that is left are the words taken from the old Carnegie Library facade: “Dedicated to the Advancement of Learning.”