Block After Block, at Wexner Center

BLOCK AFTER BLOCK
by Fallen Fruit (David Burns and Austin Young)

our art installation on view at Wexner Center for the Arts.
March 18th through May 7th, 2017

“See our lower lobby transformed by Fallen Fruit, a multidisciplinary collaborative project led by David Burns and Austin Young. Part of a suite of related works in Columbus, their site-specific installation in our lower lobby integrates custom wallpaper Melbourne inspired by the botany of central Ohio, a selection of found photographs from library archives, and plates and frames sourced from local vintage and antique stores. Influenced by their research on Columbus’s neighborhoods and their enduring interest in private and public spaces, Fallen Fruit correlates rich histories embedded in our communities to the heritage and histories of domestic objects. The installation coincides with Fallen Fruit’s public fruit parks in Columbus’s Weinland Park and South Side neighborhoods.” – Wexner Center for the Arts

The art installation includes “Columbus Wallpaper” by Fallen Fruit
and found photographs courtesy of Ohio History Connection and The Library of Congress.

When we researched the archives of the Library of Congress for images about Weinland Park and the South Side we discovered something unexpected. There are dozens of hi-resolution photographs of abandoned houses. Pictures of houses that had once depicted a kind of notable and pride filled 20th century American neighborhood maybe a generation prior. In the historical archive images every one of the houses are boarded up, shut down and abandoned. There are many broken windows and un-kept gardens are common in what have become “archive images” that are now part of a “lost history” about the neighborhoods that we are currently working in Columbus, Ohio.

What is more unusual about this unexpected discovery is that in the Ohio History Connection archives we were fascinated by two two image archives from Godman Guild and the South Side summer camp activities. They are photographed in the same era as that of the abandoned houses. However, these other two archives separated into two folders organized by race and titled “Black” and “White.”

Check out this time-lapse of our team installing pictures and custom wallpaper in the Wex lobby!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6PVhpLgq-g

WEXNER CENTER – LOWER LOBBY
1871 N High St
Columbus, OH 43210
United States

Fallen Fruit’s projects in Columbus are produced in close collaboration with The City of Columbus, The Ohio State University Extension, Community Housing Network, Parsons Avenue Merchants Association, The Reeb-Hosack/Steelton Village Association, Wagenbrenner Properties, the Weinland Park Community Civic Association, and the Wexner Center for the Arts.
Funding is provided by the City of Columbus, The Columbus Foundation, Ohio Capital Corporation for Housing, Puffin Foundation West, Ltd.,
Scotts Miracle–Gro
and the Shackelford Family Foundation.