Claire Barliant talks to Julia Christensen about her work as a multimedia artist and writer.
On a rainy April day last year, I went to visit Julia Christensen in Cleveland, Ohio. Julia is a multimedia artist and writer who teaches at Oberlin College. Her book, Big Box Reuse, was published by MIT Press in 2008. The book illustrates what can happen when large retail chains such as Wal-Mart vacate their buildings, allowing local constituencies to adapt the empty spaces for different purposes, ranging from museums to community centers to indoor race tracks. Julia gave me a tour of Cleveland that included sights far from the usual tourist attractions. One of these was HGR Surplus, a resale store for industrial equipment and the focus of her current work, Surplus Rising, which tracks the migration of the equipment from its point of origin to wherever it ultimately ends up: China, Mexico, who knows? We toured the facility (which Julia jokingly referred to as a “graveyard for the rust belt”) and talked about the repercussions of a changing global economy with a Cleveland resident who has patronized the store for years.
Listen to our conversation:
Julia Christensen’s work is on view at the Banvard Gallery at The Austin E. Knowlton School of Architecture. She will be discussing Big Box Reuse and Surplus Rising at Knowlton School of Architecture on April 7th.
Claire Barliant is a Brooklyn-based critic who writes for Time Out New York, Art Forum, and Art In America, among other publications.
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We need our own space to think and digest what we see. And we also have to trust the viewer and trust the power of the object. And the power is in simple things. I like the kind of clarity that that brings to thought. It keeps thought from being opaque.
Felix Gonzalez-Torres
