Shared Remedies, Elswhere Living Museum, Greensboro, NC, 2012

Shared Remedies is a site-specific and collaborative project developed during my residency at Elsewhere Living Museum. The work takes the form of a home apothecary located on the 3rd floor of the building and it’s constituted by a compilation of home remedies that were contributed by members of the local community (artists, staff and visitors of Elsewhere). Shared remedies intends to reactivate the third floor bathroom while providing an inviting, functional and lively space that comments on subjects related to community, localism, sustainability, tradition and economy.
This project was initially inspired by one of the Spanish books found at Elsewhere’s library: “Elementos de Higiene Privada”, published in Madrid in 1857. Intending to make the books accessible to a broader audience (not only Spanish speakers), Shared Remedies becomes an alternative strategy to bridge the book’s content to an experience, instead of employing translation as the resource for connecting both. This process allowed me to elaborate on my interest in combining site-specificity and performance art as a way to activate latent narratives and explore educational platforms. The main focus of this research is to investigate issues related to tradition (tradition vs. science), the sourcing and legitimation of knowledge, and belief systems around truth.
 I hope that Shared Remedies acts as a catalyst to maintain the third floor alive through an ongoing collaboration while providing a fun, connected and helpful space to Elsewhere’s community.

 

 

 

 

 

Photo credit: Samantha Harthoorn