Installation of metal leaf, screws and string created in collaboration with the House Life Project's People + Property Series.
Told/Retold explores how outsiders and insiders construct narratives about Indianapolis's Near Eastside.
Told/Retold is a site-specific installation designed for the House Life Project's People + Property Series. In this work, screws and metal leaf mark existing cracks, nails and holes in the walls of an abandoned home in the St. Clair Place neighborhood on the Near Eastside of Indianapolis. String connects each screw, symbolizing the narratives we create about a place.
Told/Retold was designed to activate community conversation about the concepts of equity, housing and race by revealing the differences between insider and outsider narratives. Using string I connected each screw in a way that represented my own narrative. As a self-described outsider, I then cut the string from the wall, leaving the pieces to fall on the floor. Once this form had been cleared, neighbors of St. Clair Place were able to create their own narrative using string. Two neighborhood youths chose to re-wrap the string using their own voices and stories. It is their wrapping that remains in the space as a backdrop for conversations about equity, housing and race.
Conceptually, Told/Retold critiques the systematic use of privileged outsiders to narrate the story of neighborhoods like St. Clair Place. All too often value is ascribed to a place only as determined by developers, elected officials, philanthropists and other outsiders. When a neighborhood undergoes change through the narrative of these outsiders, it risks gentrification, minimal community engagement or other unintended effects. This suggests that power to control narrative needs to be equitable. Conceptualizing Told/Retold through the theme of equity requires the audience to consider insider narratives and community self-determination as essential to the larger conversation about housing and race.
More about the House Life Project here.