I took this photo at Literati yesterday because I loved the quote. Keep it tactile! That’s what I’m trying to do with my project. I want to bring us back to appreciate books, photos, letters—those things we can hold. I want the project to showcase how important the work that libraries do.
Photo from Last Summer
Today I found a history tour outside of my house
I came home from doing research at the Bentley for IP to find a group of 7 people (all senior citizens) standing across the street from my house. They were staring and pointing at it. I knew I had to know for myself what they were doing so I turned my car off and ran over to them.
Turns out, they were on a tour of historic Kerrytown. I introduced myself to the group leader, a woman named Grace Shackman. It was actually a course that Grace was teaching through Washtenaw Community College, they visited a number of locations including Ypsilanti and other places. Today, it just so happens that I found them on their walking tour of Ann Arbor! I told Grace I felt like I was lacking direction in my project and she agreed to meet with me at my house this Thursday. She said she knows a great deal about my very house—which I’m very excited to here. I plan on recording the session as long as Grace is OK with it.
This can really open up a new dimension to my research—I can begin incorporating conversations I have with real-life people, like Grace. After all, she is a historian and knows a great deal about Ann Arbor. The image above is a picture of the group I snapped a little while after our interaction, I saw them walking around town while I was driving.
Notes from meeting with Jennifer
Notes from my meeting with Jennifer:
1. Books are disappearing
2. Jennifer likes the idea of the big book. What are books? She says she likes the idea of walking into it. It’s closed. Seek through it.
3. Jennifer is questioning such a large scale. She says the form needs to relate to the context
4. She showed me her friend’s book (Anne Carson). It’s an accordion book full of spreads- on the left side Anne scans an image of an object and on the right she reflects on the object- I think she said it was about her mother?
5. Is this the secret history of Ann Arbor?
6. Is it Ann Arbor’s diary? If Ann Arbor had a diary what would it say? What if I were a city?
7. What’s the angle of the research? Who are you? Are you doing this because you’re a transient? Transplant? When was the first time you felt like Ann Arbor was somewhere to investigate? Why is it interesting? Why is it historical?
8. Is it a narrative? Disjointed?
9. Read Maggie Nelson- Jane (aunt murdered in Ann Arbor)
10. I asked Jennifer if I should start making or do research first? She said do both. Do material research. What is it made out of? How can you find paper thick enough to stand up?
11. The book can be about the process of my research. How did I get here? KEEP RESEARCH NOTES.. THIS CAN BE A COMPONENT OF THE PROJECT. WRITE ABOUT YOUR THOUGHTS. WRITE ABOUT THE RESEARCH YOU DO. KEEP A LIST.
12. A map of a walk I take throughout Ann Arbor
13. Quest. Who is Ann? Is it Anns?
14. The piece is about researching/process…research on research
15. Do you Ann? How close to Ann can you possibly get?
Raoul Waldenberg Fellowship Info Session
I also met this man named John Godfrey at the info session for the Waldenberg Fellowship. The first part of the session was basically a history lesson about who Raoul Waldenberg was—in 1931 he came to U of M from Sweden as an arch student. He needed to escape the elitist confides of Swedish Society. He was fluent in English, German, Swedish and French. He had the opportunity to go anywhere—Oxford, Yale..he chose U of M bc it’s a public school. He could be himself. He came to NY and took a train to Ann Arbor. It was culture shock. Ann Arbor was an 1/8 of its size than it is today.
He was an adventurer at school. He had a friend in the distant town of Owaso that he would ride his bike to have dinner with him and his family. He would kayak all the way down the Huron river. He refused to join a frat because he felt like it would close him off. He lived in boarding houses all over Ann Arbor instead so he could meet new people (one was on Madison). He had friends all over campus. He refused to go out for football games and worked in the arch studio instead because it was so empty. He never called home when he was in school. Instead, he sent his mother snapshots of him around various parts of the campus (I recognized a few of these like Angell Hall and near South U) He stayed in Ann Arbor for the summers.
He hitchhiked with his friend from Owaso to New York and Cali and mexico city. He learned a lot about himself while doing this. He got into the car with a mobster once and they stole his money. He joined the ROTC and said “If you’re in a uniform, people pick you up.” He learned how to grapple with the world when he came to college.
When it came time to leave Ann Arbor after graduation Waldenberg was upset. “I feel so at home in my little ann arbor that I am beginning to sink roots here and have hard time imagining having to leave. But I am not being very useful here.”
Waldenberg went home to Sweden for a while. His father tried to set him up with a job at a bank like the rest of his family but he refused. He said he didn’t want to live that life. He was in Stokholm and at some point he was in Budapest and ended up in an elevator was a man.
Waldenberg was able to get anyone’s level- no matter who they were. He knew how to interact with people on their own terms. He learned from the man in the elevator that he was sent directly from the President of the US at the time to save the last 150,000 jews that were living in Budapest from being sent off to the death camps by the germans. Waldedberg took on the mission.
He got 100 volunteers together- all young people some jews themselves and began fabricating Swedish documents in a workshop. They were artful forgeries. German soldiers took official documents very seriously. They were called Shutzpass and Waldenberg saved hundreds of thousands of lives with these documents. He showed up to huge warehouses where jews were being corralled to be shipped off to camps and train stations alike and saved their lives…….
What can I do with this story? Who was this man? His foundations were laid at Michigan…He felt a deep connection to Ann Arbor just like I do. Why? What did this place look like when he was there? Can I look through his lens? Can I do something to commemorate this man and his story?
Absence / Presence
These cutouts are historical buildings from Ann Arbor that I accessed from the Ann Arbor Public Library.
Deconstructed Book Installation Concept
Deconstructed Book Concept for gallery playing with light/shape/form. I see the ‘pages’ of the book hanging from the ceiling with cutout stars through them. Perhaps they are made out of metal, maybe paper…Light is shining through the shapes causing shadows throughout the room.
