Restoration Public Restroom Project (2002)

During the CalArts 2001/02 school year the over-enrollment of incoming students resulted in a shortage of studio space. The administration was forced to act on limited resources to fulfill the program's promise to provide each student with a studio. They decided to convert a large corrugated shed lying on the outskirts of campus into a new studio block for the BFA1 class. Within a month of its transformation the common area was littered with graffiti and an excess of discarded materials.
I collaborated with Brock Smith working in dialogue with the administration's reclamation of the shed that previously serviced as storage for lawn equipment. Our project involved remodeling one of the two non-gender specified restrooms into an elite facility that would be better maintained than all other restrooms on campus. To demonstrate our authority as the new co-owners we hung framed portraits of ourselves posturing as businessmen on the wall opposite of the toilet. The absurdity of this well maintained restroom's location on campus made the situation all the more exceptional. We further elaborated on the idea of privatization as a form of aesthetic beautification by installing a surveillance camera that ran live feed to our separate studio spaces situated directly across from the restroom. The remodeling occurred over night and without institutional permission. The immediacy of its transformation addresses the aesthetics of public and private through the co-optation of a restroom belonging to a private institution that rejects the use of surveillance. Acknowledging us as both the vandals and the new aesthetic co-owners of a space that was formerly servicing an undefined group of people.

-Michael Decker
5-12- 02

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• RPRP
• Michael Decker
• Brock Smith
• CalArts
• CalArts 2002