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Harkrader's Exhibit Aestheticizes Junk

by Jessica McGuinness

A child's lost roller skates, an old ironing table and locust moltings are a sampling of the wide assortment of found objects that made up junior Lauren Harkrader's No State of Mind, which took place over the weekend. The multimedia show was held in the Asia House basketball court and was a final presentation for the Re-Imagining the Book class. The show operated as a walk-in book, with chapters ranging in subject from childhood development to the misogyny of rap lyrics.

The show was complex. It included as many as 10 different sculptures, each a distinct piece that could stand on its own. Most of the work was a mixed assemblage of found objects. Harkrader's collection was amazing - the exhibit was like walking into some magical jukyard paradise. The items were carefully arranged on the floor or crowded onto tables like 3-D collages.

A kind of spiral path emerged as the series was arranged around a tarp-and-sand installation in the center of the room. A spread of soft dirt lay atop the tarp, which was suspended above the sand-coated floor. A single, naked bulb illuminated the plastic, producing a great oily effect while intensifying the novelty of looking upward.

Harkrader chose her site well. The musty basketball court complemented the worn objects and the crumbling floor, and sparse lighting gave the spot a secretive, cavernous feeling. There was a strong sense of being invited into a space under construction - hiding in the corner, Harkrader's deliberately unmade bed (slept in for two days) acted as a kind of artist's statement about her desire to create a living, working communal space.

The notion of community was pushed further by ideas concerning how people are affected and trained by the environments they live in. Harkrader seemed to be using these assembled objects as a way to articulate her own "twenty years of conditioning. She stated, "I wanted to investigate the effect our environment can have on us when we're growing up." The title No State of Mind comes from Grandmaster Flash 's lyric "a child is born with no state of mind." Though the ideas seemed somewhat unglued, scale and the presence of collage accommodated them.

Part of the idea behind the show was that it be made accessible to the audience. As one walked through the dimly lit court, Harkrader encouraged investigation - picking things up and handling them. She seemed happy that people were treating the space as their own, rearranging the objects at will. She also didn't mind when pieces of the record player broke off. The record player was probably one of the most imaginative pieces in the show. Harkrader made latex molds of broken records and pieced them together on a turntable so that a network of open gaps allowed light to filter up from beneath. The light pulsed up, illuminating the waxy mold and when the record spun, the gaps gave a strobe-kaleidoscope effect. If God doesn't make junk, then why is it so beautiful?

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Copyright © 2000, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 129, Number 12, December 15, 2000

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