• This website includes dozens of videos, hundreds of essays, and thousands of drawings created over the past twenty years. Search to learn more about the history of buildings, places, prisons, Newark, New York City, and my PhD research on spatial inequality.

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Tag Archives: collection

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Handmade Dollhouse

  11 May 2014 ,
I built this dollhouse over several years. Using balsa wood, cardboard, and salvaged scraps, I glued together all the pieces of furniture. Odds and ends – such as bottle caps, fabric scraps, and earrings – enrich the rooms with detail. None of the materials are purchased from a building kit or model store. They are all handmade as a skill-building exercise.

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Dollhouse

Living room
Living room
Living room
Living room
Doll house
Doll house
Bedroom
Bedroom
Bedroom
Bedroom
Children's room
Children’s room
Children's room
Children’s room
Kitchen
Kitchen
Kitchen
Kitchen
Kitchen
Kitchen
sense of scale
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The Old Essex County Jail

  17 April 2014 , ,

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The old Essex Country Jail sits forlorn and abandoned amidst desolate parking lots and lifeless prefab boxes. In the so-called University Heights neighborhood, the jail is testimony to the past. Listed on the National Register of Historical Places, this 1837 structure is one of the oldest jails in America and the oldest civic structure in the city. Abandoned for over fifty years, no successful preservation efforts have materialized.
The urban jungle of junk trees, vines, and garbage conquers the old fortress. The warden’s garden that zealous prisoners once pruned and weeded is now overrun with nature. Used syringes line the cell-block floors. Not a single window is unbroken. Not a single wall is straight or strong. The rigid geometry that defined this urban castle is now blanketed in decay.
Yet, this fortress of old is still a home. A trail of homeless squeeze through the rusted barbed wire fencing. They carry with them their few odd valuables, cans to be recycled or shopping bags of discarded clothes. Every night, they sleep in the very cells their luckless brethren slept in decades before. Every day, they wander city streets in search of donations, food, and work. The physical prison of brute force and searchlights has evolved into the no less oppressive prison of poverty. Both prisons, new and old, are refuges for the luckless. As its occupants have changed, so has the prison. Both are ghosts. Both are vanishing.

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Related content

  1. Read my January 2021 article in The Newarker magazine.
  2. Read this July 2020 article from Jersey Digs
    about my exhibit and the New Jersey Institute of Technology’s proposal to reuse this jail site.
  3. Hear my September 2019 interview about this jail and exhibit from Pod & Market.
  4. Explore this jail as an interactive exhibit online.
  5. View this artwork as part of my short film from 2016 called Pictures of Newark.

 

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North Wing (left) and West Wing (right)

West Wing

Warden’s House

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Ruins of Warden’s House Interior

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Essex County Jail
Essex County Jail
Overgrown Courtyard
Overgrown Courtyard
Essex County Jail
Essex County Jail
<KENOX S860 / Samsung S860>
Decayed Stairs
Decayed Stairs
Boiler Room
Boiler Room
Essex County Jail
Essex County Jail
Children's books left by homeless inhabitant and her family.
Children’s books left by homeless inhabitant and her family.
<KENOX S860 / Samsung S860>
<KENOX S860 / Samsung S860>
Mural
Mural
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Artwork reflecting on the theme of surreal outer space

  2 March 2014 ,
When I gaze at the night sky, I wonder: “What does that infinite darkness contain?” I imagine a plethora of other worlds. I see worlds where gravity and inertia vanish. It is a world of my own fabrication, superimposed over the pitch black sky. While I cannot visit such a place, I can still put image to paper.

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Chirico

Inspired by the Tower of Babel and the Place Vendôme in Paris

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Sweet dreams
Sweet dreams
Sleepless night
Sleepless night
Mother moon
Mother moon
UFO landing strip
UFO landing strip
Security camera - inspired by Bentham's panopticon
Security camera – inspired by Bentham’s panopticon
Space station
Space station
My little planet
My little planet
Father Ttme
Father Ttme
Foreign land - inspired by Mars
Foreign land – inspired by Mars
Architect's nightmare
Architect’s nightmare
Inspired by the paintings of Chirico
Inspired by the paintings of Chirico
Inspired by M.C. Escher
Inspired by M.C. Escher
Paralax - inspired by the architecture of Eastern State Penitentiary
Paralax – inspired by the architecture of Eastern State Penitentiary
Vanishing point
Vanishing point
Toward infinity
Toward infinity
Inspired by Mondrian
Inspired by Mondrian
Space age church of science
Space age church of science
Gears of time
Gears of time
Chasm
Chasm
Death
Death
Wave
Wave
Detroit
Detroit
Inspired by photos of the Siege of Stalingrad
Inspired by photos of the Siege of Stalingrad
Invasion
Invasion
Geometry
Geometry
Biological warfare
Biological warfare
Piranesi's prison
Piranesi’s prison
Train
Train
Inspired by Hokusai's wave
Inspired by Hokusai’s wave
Space ship
Space ship
Imaginary night sky in New York City
Imaginary night sky in New York City
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Film featuring a few of my art projects

  2 March 2014 , ,

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Visiting China in 2011, I was shocked by the reach of globalization. On the train, I witnessed an endless treadmill of mile after mile of identical crops, villages, and cities. The polluted skies and downcast weather hinted at the consequence of growth. Returning home, I earned greater appreciation for my own artistic creations. They seemed so much more innocent – a naïve refuge from reality.

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Scenes filmed from Levittown, Pennsylvania are paired with the corniest rendition of the Star Spangled Banner I could find.