Storefront for Art and Architecture, the experimental exhibition space in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood, organized its first in-person exhibition since the ongoing global pandemic shuttered most of New York City’s cultural institutions early last year. Re-Source opened in November 2020 and closes at the end of this month, and was launched as both a survey of returning collaborators and their work, but also as a benefit auction to raise money for Storefront.
For Re-Source, curators asked 26 architects and firms to create new design work from leftover materials accumulated by Storefront over several years, resulting in a series of distinct objects refashioned from various modeling supplies and construction materials. All 26 contributors are past participants in the organization’s exhibitions, including Bryony Roberts Studio, Office III, and PARA Project.
Atelier Office, led by Amina Blacksher and V. Mitch McEwen, put a hard hat on casters and filled it with sliced floor mats. Parc Office used DVD players, security cameras, and cables to create a sculptural object that draws attention to the pervasiveness of electronic waste.
Imagining re-use and renewal as critical design exercises for a world shaken by intersecting public health and climate crises, Re-Source highlights the often-overlooked process of waste generation in curatorial contexts. “Through this process,” Storefront explains in the show’s description, “we seek to give new life to things we hold, and to open up space that is crucial for new ways of working, making, and thinking.”
With exhibition design by Mexico City-based LANZA Atelier and graphics by Pentagram, Re-Source is the product of a broad collaboration across the design disciplines. While entry to the exhibition is free-of-charge, Storefront has also established a Re-Source Benefit Committee to recoup losses from last year’s canceled spring benefit. Gifts of varying sizes will earn donors complimentary Storefront publications, a table designed by Lanza Atelier, or seats at a virtual event with the exhibition’s participating architects.
