About the installation.
Augustine Boyce Cummings worked with Paul Amenta and Grand Rapids based Site:lab to create a large scale site specific installation titled “An American Dream” .
With the addition of locally sourced objects most of the materials utilized in this work come from the former high school site in which it is contained. The installation resides in a space exceeding 2,000 square feet.
The work utilizes familiar school supplies such as #2 pencils, ballpoint pens, sharpie markers, chalk, gold star stickers to create a large wall drawing. Several vertical red lines interrupt the Blue lines running horizontally, these lines are intended to make the installation appear as a notebook filled with stream of consciousness drawing and doodling. We all share the common experience of daydreaming in class and doodling in our notebooks; this piece expands on this simple practice to discuss bigger narratives that we face not only within our schools but also as a society at large. This is an installation of drawing, found and repurposed items and sculpture.
About SiTE:LAB
SiTE:LAB is a nomadic all-volunteer artist-led initiative that has organized over 20 projects primarily in underutilized sites in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Project sites have included: An entire city block, an abandoned natural history museum, a nature preserve, vacant commercial buildings, and a once-grand downtown hotel. Our current site is an abandoned 70,000 Sq Ft high school.
"I think SiTE:LAB is a world-class installation group or whatever they call themselves. You could bring this to Documenta in Germany and it would be respected." —Jerry Saltz, Senior Art Critic, New York magazine
