It was estimated that by the end of 2007, nearly 67 million individuals were forcibly displaced from their homes. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the IRC, and African Refuge are some of the many organizations that provide services for refugees throughout the world, including those in NYC.
Walking along the streets in NYC you are continuously bombarded with signs advertising storage units. On the subway, on billboards, in newspapers. Public Storage, Manhattan Mini-Storage, American Self-Storage, Storage Deluxe. We own so many things that we are incapable of fitting it all in our own spaces. In fact, we actually pay to store it somewhere else -- an extension of ourselves somewhere else mixed in with extensions of the lives of others, all in one public area.
Storage is the opposite of the idea, an installation piece that focuses on refugees, from Pakistan to Colombia. It is designed as a faux storage unit, holding only those items that a refugee takes with them when forcibly displaced from their home, objects that are carried necessary for survival and grabbed within a moment’s notice.
Walking along the streets in NYC you are continuously bombarded with signs advertising storage units. On the subway, on billboards, in newspapers. Public Storage, Manhattan Mini-Storage, American Self-Storage, Storage Deluxe. We own so many things that we are incapable of fitting it all in our own spaces. In fact, we actually pay to store it somewhere else -- an extension of ourselves somewhere else mixed in with extensions of the lives of others, all in one public area.
Storage is the opposite of the idea, an installation piece that focuses on refugees, from Pakistan to Colombia. It is designed as a faux storage unit, holding only those items that a refugee takes with them when forcibly displaced from their home, objects that are carried necessary for survival and grabbed within a moment’s notice.
Part of Art for Change's Hacia Afuera group exhibition
Photo courtesy of: Erika Sosa Klein
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