secret spatial histories of santa cruz
participatory installation
collaboration with Kyle McKinley / the building collective
Work In Progress, The Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History
December 14, 2012 – March 17, 2013

The building collective is interested in exploring and transforming spaces. For Work in Progress, we transformed the space of the museum by filling it with secret histories excavated from everyday spaces throughout Santa Cruz. Every other week, we invited amature historians, story makers, accidental geographers, and other participants to the museum to drink coffee, eats snacks, and create shared spatial histories by sharing stories in a shared space. These shared histories became a giant concept map drawn on the walls that served as a record of these meetings and explored connections between the social and material practices that continually recreate the spaces we inhabit.

Like most building projects, the most important part of the project resists documentation: the conversations that emerged from the many people who visited the space and met each other. As one participant observed:  “It was remarkably lacking in the kind of ‘you’re-in-a workshop’ and ‘look,-you’re-participating’ intensity I think we sometimes feel we need to cultivate. A different kind of intensity emerged over time and in the depth of the conversations that sometimes started to happen. It was interesting to note that any idea of deliberative or dialogic moments simply popped up when they popped up. They weren’t forced but when they did they were gently cultivated.”