Please Take One (object to take)
2009
Digital prints on 20lb paper, staple, ink
variable
Photo-strips were stacked and stapled to the bulletin board, using a similar strategy to tear-off phone numbers included on many of the board’s postings. Installation was in response to a personal experience at that Laundromat as well as to the nature of the laundromat as a space where private and public spheres overlap and where transformations are expected and regularly occur.
Text appears on the back of each strip. It reads:
I saw a homeless man at the laundromat last night. I thought it was strange that I had never seen a homeless person there before and that it was resourceful of him to have saved his money and waited for the prime night to be indoors so that he could not only wash his clothes but also stay out of the storm without being accused of loitering. / I realized that my assumption that giving homeless people money only enables their addictions was false and that some people were using the money to better themselves. / This man saved enough to do both.
Project developed for and placed on the community bulletin board at the Baker St. Coin Laundry, 550 Baker St., San Francisco, CA. Installed March 2, 2009, 6:45PM.
diy printable