Material honesty forms the backbone of Grocery List (Materials and Methods) in a marriage of the point-blank display of the ordinary and an aesthetics of the laboratory. Inspired by the animal testing that formed a large part of the building’s past as well as the building’s prior existence as a science building at large, the installation’s “glove wall” invites participants to place their hands in the gloved openings in a pane of plexi, nodding to biosafety laboratory practices (specifically BSL-4) and exploring alternative means of scientific exploration. The source of examination here, instead of a toxin, is the open and undefined air of the upper corridor, bringing into question the undefined interiority and exteriority of Steele and Lang inherent to its Brutalist nature as well as contrasting with the specimen box of “meat,” separate and sealed. It is in the plastic sections of the grid that viewers find our sixteen “test specimens” – both organic and synthetic, all found. The projected microscopic image serves as an independent variable in which the samples become dependent, evolving and becoming points of inquiry for the detritus of academic life.
Grocery List (Materials and Methods) in collaboration. 2025