Be one. 

Collectively reorder. 

Come to a consensus. 

1. From October 2020 through October 2021, objects in Series XIII were assessed and rehoused as part of the Kress Fellowship in Plastics Conservation. Plastic items were rehoused to group like polymers together in the same boxes and prevent further degradation. Benign plastics are housed in Tyvek or tissue with silicone-coated mylar. Cellulose nitrate and acetate are housed in boxes that allow for air circulation. PVC is stored in non-vented mylar bags to inhibit plasticizer degradation. Rubber and polyurethane are housed in oxygen-free environments with oxygen scavengers inside of bags. Non-plastic objects were also rehoused to consolidate boxes and provide better protection for items within each box. Boxes throughout this series were then renumbered seriatim.i 

2. An empty oxygen tank, a running oxygen compressor, tubes, a nasal cannula, and a collapsible stretcher. 

3. Remnants of plastic soles of shoes, sand, a block of blue Styrofoam, a stingray carcass, and a landfill stone. 

4. Various metal contraptions that, for a moment, looked like what I was supposed to be looking at. 

5. I’m still not over what they did to David Wojnarowicz’s Magic Box (59 collected objects originally stored together in a pine fruit box he labeled “Magic Box”). The Archive Curator re-labeled it “Series XIII: Objects and Artifacts, 1914-1992, inclusive; Subseries B: The Magic Box” and separated the objects from their container. 

6. The bones, the clothes, the goo, and a chemo port. 

7. On Saturday, I passed by museum display cases emptied of prior artefacts, either waiting for the return of previous objects or for their replacement. The remnants of the previous exhibition’s lighting rested on the walls and floors of the display cases, illuminating what was left. 

8. I remember peering into my grandfather’s casket and seeing that they chose to bury him with his prosthetic arm. 

9. The leather-covered cushions attached to the metal base and the plastic wheels. 

10. Sometimes I think about how underneath the grass, the earth, the concrete box, the steel box, the foam cushion, rests… 

11. Prepared Subgrade, Compacted Clay, Geomembrane, Leachate Water Filtration System, Filter Geotextile, Leachate Collection Layer, Waste, Daily Cover, Waste, Daily Cover, Compacted Clay, Geomembrane, Drainage Layer, Protective Cover Soil, Top Soil, Cover Vegetation. Or. Cover Vegetation, Top Soil, Protective Cover Soil, Drainage Layer, Geomembrane, Compacted Clay, Daily Cover, Waste, Daily Cover, Waste, Leachate Collection Layer, Filter Geotextile, Leachate Water Filtration System, Geomembrane, Compacted Clay, Prepared Subgrade.ii 

i https://findingaids.library.nyu.edu/fales/mss_092/contents/aspace_ref3091/#aspace_ref3901 

ii https://slowfactory.earth/landfills-as-museums