HOME FOR DISCARDED CHARACTERS
Medium: Drawing
Competition proposal submitted for
Citygroup 2nd Annual Poots Competition
Year: 2024
Objects, for as long as we have a purpose for them or find them beautiful, are considered permanent fixtures in our spaces. But when objects are no longer wanted they are left out on the stoop in the hopes that a stranger or a garbage truck will take them away—whichever happens to come first. Objects on the stoop have been set into motion, uncertain of their status: will they find a new home or will they die in the landfill? Their existence hangs in the balance for as long as they are out on that precarious stoop.
A poots is the opposite of a stoop: a void in the street where objects can take a rest. A poots can be a Home for Discarded Characters, a place for the objects that are no longer wanted. Newly wrapped in padded fabric, their forms are transformed into soft ambiguous seating and surfaces for relaxing. Yet, below their new sweaters, the characters still bear the traces and memories of their past life. They carry memories of their past use - the plates that were set out on them, the butts that sat on their surfaces, the feet that treaded their steps. A poots can be an Object Petting Zoo, to be visited by anyone who wants to contemplate the past lives that dwell there.
