The Fantastic Life & Archive of Jordan Schwamm
Client: Self-Authored
Collaborators: Olivia De Salve Villedieu, Joseph Allegro
Status: Completed
Year: 2018
Tags: Environmental, Identity, Media
Client: Self-Authored
Collaborators: Olivia De Salve Villedieu, Joseph Allegro
Status: Completed
Year: 2018
Tags: Environmental, Identity, Media
The Fantastic Life & Archive of Jordan Schwamm was an immersive experience of the fictitious tale revealing the sponge archive of Jordan Schwamm, in honor of his recent passing.
The tour itself acted as a participation based funeral and introduction to 100+ sponges, wild to domestic, collected over his life time. Joseph acted as the tour guide/host of the funeral while Olivia and I acted as two of Jordan’s lifelong friends attending to give statements about Jordan’s life and personal archive.
In addition to the performances the sponges were arranged into eight dioramas rebuilt directly from Jordan’s original dioramas of 1987. These dioramas were a glimpse into the life and vision of Jordan as both a collector and a person. The performance was accompanied by funeral prosthetics: 1) a small booklet showing the dioramas with the appropriate sponge taxonomy and 2) posters of some of Jordan’s most prized possessions.
The funeral took place in a small room located in the old RISD library. This room was outfitted with a movable shelving system that allowed us to create a display system to proudly display Jordan’s collection.
The tour itself acted as a participation based funeral and introduction to 100+ sponges, wild to domestic, collected over his life time. Joseph acted as the tour guide/host of the funeral while Olivia and I acted as two of Jordan’s lifelong friends attending to give statements about Jordan’s life and personal archive.
In addition to the performances the sponges were arranged into eight dioramas rebuilt directly from Jordan’s original dioramas of 1987. These dioramas were a glimpse into the life and vision of Jordan as both a collector and a person. The performance was accompanied by funeral prosthetics: 1) a small booklet showing the dioramas with the appropriate sponge taxonomy and 2) posters of some of Jordan’s most prized possessions.
The funeral took place in a small room located in the old RISD library. This room was outfitted with a movable shelving system that allowed us to create a display system to proudly display Jordan’s collection.
