Salvage/Salvation* is an installation and performance project that explores the metaphysics of re-use and the philosophical, emotional and material implications of discard. The project is made for spaces that are between uses or slated for demolition, and appropriate outdoor sites. A group of visual and performing artists create independent but overlapping environments and performances grouped loosely around a central theme. The site itself, the surrounding community and any discarded materials found on-site inspire the exact character of the event. Through its methodology and the striking nature of the final environments, Salvage/Salvation seeks to bring ideas of scavenging and transformation to center stage and create a dialogue with the public about sustainable relationships to our physical environment, advocating ingenuity and unity.

Salvage/Salvation uses installation and performance as a laboratory for both artists and audience. It is a primarily urban project that began in New York City. A group of artistic collaborators and outside consultants seek out unused spaces, and create installations and performances that are appropriate to the space and its surrounding locale, taking into account the local neighborhood, the city itself, and local industries. Each group begins with the same hypothesis, but the conclusions (the pieces) are determined through the research process and the specific parameters of the circumstances at hand. The groups works together to create a unified esthetic through the juxtaposition of independent voices.

Since 2002, Salvage/Salvation has had four very different iterations; in a gallery reclaimed from a garage in Queens, NYC, (HOME) in a storefront slated for demolition in Times Square, NYC (Living Salvation) and twice at the Queens Botanical Garden (NEST and HIVE). The themes varied with each space—some examples: In Living Salvation the artists contemplated the questions: What is our relationship to our own past, and how do we discard or transform trauma and sorrow in our selves as well as in our physical environment? In NEST, the artists took the gathering practices of birds as their inspiration, and used only materials found on-site at the Botanical Garden to create a series of temporary homes.

For Salvage/Salvation Part 5, tentatively titled Pittsburgh Home, I will seek out a residence (house, apartment building, etc.) that is currently not in use, preferably abandoned for several years. Abandoned or unused structures give the sense of architecture finally relaxing into dust and dirt and complex edges, and contain all the ghosts of history in their rooms, clamoring for our attention. What is normally left behind and ignored will be used to create a new reality, as each room in the house is re-built, the palpable past contained in the structure becoming a stage set for an unknown narrative.

I am looking for collaborators who are interested in the transformations that take place over time—the decay of objects, the blurring of memory’s boundaries, the dream-like connections that occur when looking back. Specifically, visual artists who are at home working with found objects and interested in hybrids, as well as comfortable with thinking of their creation as an environment for performance, and performing artists who are interested in history and memory. In the past, artists have created their own environments for performance, and this is welcome here as well. Materials for the environment will be reclaimed from the space itself, as well as other sources, including industrial and agricultural surplus, found objects and personal possessions.

Using discarded and “imperfect” materials to create new beauty or interest is “living well in the ruins,” an idea born from a conviction that we must learn to live well without our luxuries. Salvage/Salvation is ultimately about abundance--the gorgeous everyday, the fabulous mundane, the wealth contained in even our discards. It is using imagination to create new realities, to shift perspective using alliances made through individual creative acts.

* The name for Salvage/Salvation was born when one of the original collaborators said, "I know that for me it has something to do with salvage/salvation, feeling compelled to not let things go to waste, yet facing the ephemeral nature of existence, the evolving harmony of life and death." Some of the guiding questions for Salvage/Salvation are:

How do we view decay and loss? Death and decay, on petty and grand scales, consistently assert themselves in our lives—from rotting fruit to a broken stereo to a bombed-out city to the death of a relative to the ruins of once-great structures. How do we approach these experiences? Do we accept or reject them, live with them or repress them?

What do we discard, materially and socially, emotionally and spiritually, and what place do these discards have in our lives? How do we value discards? We are encouraged to discard the reality of death and loss, but does the life span of an object or state of mind end when we're "done" with it? How does it continue in the world?

What makes garbage garbage? There is comfort in excess; it is desirable to have enough to throw "away," and a deep sense of cleansing in the act of discarding. How does this form, and can it be shifted?

In a world of dwindling resources, how do we become a society of scavengers and survivors rather than producers and consumers? When in life are people scavengers? We want to affirm the already-existing roles and skills of scavenger and survivor that people take on in their lives (retrieving objects from the side of the road, creating a planter from a bathtub, finding furniture in Dumpsters, etc.).

In Salvage/Salvation the events are part performance and gallery exhibit and part think tank and party and it is as much a way to start conversations as it is a performance. As part of all the performances, there is a "lounge" area that contains a variety of materials that can be used to create new objects, a series of questions to answer, and articles and books on subjects related to the main concepts of Salvage/Salvation. Here the audience will have the opportunity to create their own pieces of art, talk to each other and the creators, study, write and think. The exact nature of the "lounge" will also be determined by the group of creators. So far, the "lounge," as well as the open nature of the performances and the drop-in form of the exhibition, have sparked connections and lively conversations among the audience members and between audience and creators.

Salvage/Salvation brings the audience into an alternative vision of culture, one where we can accept and live alongside loss and decay, and find new ways of approaching the material world. One of the purposes of Salvage/Salvation will be to stimulate discussion, connection and action on a local level, endorsing a resourceful relationship to society and encouraging an artistic community to lend its talent for creative thinking to problem-solving. Our approach to the site, the materials and the performance elements will find beauty in the aftermath of decay and dilapidation, learning to live alongside the difficult presence of death and violence, and gently point to the abundance contained in our discards. The decision to use only found and recycled materials for the physical elements of the performance, including sound and video equipment and lighting instruments, is utilitarian as well as philosophical—our main expenses will then be life-support considerations, (e.g. generator and portable toilet rental, insurance, artists/ administrator fees)) rather than expenses for creating an entirely new environment. The situation ideally acts as a meeting place for several different disciplines and audience types.