Original Replica

This installation is based on a collection of objects that once belonged to my grandparents: an accidental and un-glamorous collection of family heirlooms. In collaboration with Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Prop Supervisor, I reproduced these objects as theatrical props (some came from the theater’s prop collection and were altered, some sourced from ebay and many produced from scratch). These were then placed in a living room stage setting of “naked” furniture that functioned like empty signifiers, whose sole purpose was to showcase the props. The insertion of real, fake, prop and object challenges the procedures of value making through personal memory.

Considering the mechanisms that create the fake and shape the real; this prop maker’s worktable is a sculpture in which every element is purposely placed. It is similar to the social and political structures that position us as subjects, that are themselves carefully constructed.

In Judaism, it is forbidden to make an image or statue representing the divine, which is considered shapeless. Still, religious objects, like many other signifiers, gain the meaning and importance intended towards what they signify. They are viewed as transcendental, far exceeding their production or material value. Here, farther removed, it is the mere image of four Jewish religious objects that are elevated.

For the two-person exhibition Monuments Of Memory in which this body of work was first exhibited, I created a series of casts in collaboration with artist Nancy Sayavong. These are part of a series of casts pointing to the circulatory systems of a house – the flow of electricity, water, heat, etc. These systems are both the “veins” of the house and what enable us to live in it. The relationship is mutual, and the house in turn is affected by its inhabitants and usage. The rust growing on the casts references the process of aging of the house/materials.