Mixed-Media Assemblage

Overview

Bookshelf examines the condition of potential before authorship. Rather than functioning as storage, the shelving unit operates as a living field of first-order artifacts whose relationships remain intentionally unresolved. Domestic objects, books, vessels, sculptures, found materials, travel souvenirs, and personal effects occupy a shared structure without yet becoming individual works. Many of these components later appear throughout the Ezra corpus, while others remain dormant, awaiting future activation. The shelving unit therefore exists simultaneously as archive, studio, and reservoir. Objects are preserved not because they already possess meaning, but because they retain the possibility of entering new relationships over time. As works emerge, components migrate from the shelf into the wider corpus while remaining connected to their point of origin. Bookshelf does not represent a collection. It performs potential.

Metadata

Artist
Seth / Ezra Dager

Year
2025–2026

Medium
Mixed-Media Installation

Status
Complete

Archive
Field Archive

Location
The Rigley Field

Components
Steel shelving unit; books; sculptural busts; globe; vintage fan; Pastis Duval vessel; wicker thermos; ceramic vessels; glass vessels; mannequin head with sunglasses; volcanic stone; hand model; bust of Benjamin Franklin; cork collection; candles; found objects; travel artifacts; domestic objects; personal effects; additional first-order artifacts.