Elsewhere

Long-time Anti-Bummer artist and friend, Ms. World Book (a.k.a. Irene), has recently been dispatching news from the Elsewhere Artist Collaborative in Greensboro, NC. It is a place exploring a great concept:

"Elsewhere is set within a three-story former thrift store housing an immense 58-year collection of American cultural objects amassed by one woman, Sylvia Gray... The collection includes thousands of toys, books, periodicals, clothing, fabric, games, trinkets, bric-a-brac, furniture, antiques, army surplus, and historical documents. These objects, none of which are any longer for sale, now circulate internally, composing an evolving installation of objects and artwork while providing a continued resource for the cultivation of new creative processes and works."

Ms. Book is currently one of the many long-term visitors who inhabit the compound on a rotating basis. Transformed by Gray's grandson, George Scheer, the Collaborative now invites archivists, filmmakers, journalists, scholars, artists and others to spend residencies in the vast consumer time-capsule. They feed them and house them, giving them time to tinker with stuff from the past - the entire collection at their disposal for use and re-use. Ms. Book's work, as always, is both subtle and striking.

The Collaborative's website is navigated in much the same way one wanders around in a gigantic thrift store: overwhelmed, but curious enough to forge ahead, sometimes for hours, slowly uncovering little gems.