Restitutions, 2021
archival inkjet prints, PVA
20” x 110” x 5”
Restitutions questions value and ownership in both virtual and physical space by replacing physical artifacts with virtual and artificial forms. The word restitution means both a restoration of something lost or stolen to its rightful owner, and a compensation for an injury or loss.
Restitutions refers directly to this act of returning while also calling attention to those who settled out of court in 2015 after the 2007 closure of the American Standard pottery. Through the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, the U.S Department of Labor requires a plant to give its workers a minimum of 60 days notice before closing its doors. My father was one of 165 hourly production workers who lost their job at that factory with only 16 days notice. In the end, he received compensation in the form of $1,856.13 from American Standard Companies Inc.
22 original porcelain artifacts were culled from Tiffin, Ohio’s, former American Standard plant by my father and I. They were then 3D scanned, archived and reproduced off-site. By implementing augmented reality, I have digitally returned these relics to their original resting place. The documentation of this act is displayed alongside the 3D printed reproductions of the ceramic artifacts. This process virtually restores and physically emulates broken porcelain– long forgotten and then removed, while drawing attention to the conspicuously missing ceramics themselves.