PUBLIC PROPERTY, Mixed Media, 2024

Artistic collaborator and box architecture: Kimberli I Meyer

Fabrication: Wesley Harmon

Installation: Wesley Harmon and Julian Josiah MacMillan

Photography: Scott Alario

Font consultation: Paul Soullelis

Commissioned by the City of Providence, RI.

The artwork “Public Property” is a sculpture that presents a commentary on public space, and the evolving nature of collective memory. The proposed artwork is situated at the 25 Dorrance Street, Providence RI 02903 (corner of Washington Street and Dorrance). No electricity is needed. The weight of the box is estimated to be around 800 lbs. and will be fabricated in panels and assembled on site.  The artwork is a plywood box, 7’-0” wide x 7’-0” deep x 7’-6” high partially painted gold (using intumescent paint underneath for fire and water protection). On one side of the box there is the word PUBLIC, and the other side, PROPERTY.  The box includes a built-in bench, seating approximately two people. The public cannot walk into the box. The box has two peepholes covered by a peephole cover.

The box has an opening for an optical lens to capture light, suited for a 6’-3” ft focal length. The box is oriented to capture, via the pinhole, the “The Soldiers and Sailors Monument” that stands across the street from Providence City Hall. The inside of the box is painted with white ambient light rejecting projector screen paint. Inside the box, two reversed images of City Hall are placed. One with a sign marking the Dorrance Street entrance saying: “HERE IS YOUR HOUSE,” the other one with a 40ft flag at City Hall’s dome flag post that resembles a mix of the colors of the American flag. These images are superimposed by the live projection of the camera obscura. People may play with sculpture by walking / dancing etc. for the camera thereby being projected into the box. People may use their smartphones to film and photograph each other.

 

Background information

A camera obscura (literally a dark room) is an ancient optical device that projects an inverted image of its surroundings into a darkened space.

 

A camera obscura works by allowing light to enter a darkened room or box through a small hole. This light project an inverted image of the outside scene onto the opposite surface. The image appears upside-down due to the straight-line travel of light rays through the aperture. The human eye, like a camera obscura, receives light through a small opening (the pupil) and projects it onto a light-sensitive surface (the retina) at the back of the eye. Due to the physics of light traveling in straight lines, this projected image is upside-down and reversed left-to-right. However, we don’t perceive the world as upside-down because our brain has learned to interpret these signals correctly. This process happens automatically and unconsciously from a very early age as our visual system develops. The camera obscura played a revolutionary role in art, particularly in painting, by fundamentally altering how artists perceived and recreated reality. This optical device allowed painters to project live scenes onto a flat surface, enabling them to capture intricate details, perspective, and proportions with unprecedented accuracy. As a precursor to photography, and film, the camera obscura also played a crucial role in the broader evolution of visual culture, laying the groundwork for future imaging technologies and forever changing how we perceive and represent the world around us. It emphasizes how subjectivity and individual perception create multiple ways of seeing and reading reality as it points out the parallel between the camera obscura and the human eye. Both systems initially receive images in an inverted manner.

The installation underscores the idea that our understanding of history, like the image in a camera obscura, is always inverted, always mediated, and always open to reinterpretation. In addition, the use of peepholes to view the inverted image creates an intimate, individual experience of a public monument. This could be seen as a comment on the personal nature of historical interpretation—each viewer must actively choose to engage with this alternative perspective, mirroring the personal responsibility we all have in critically examining historical narratives. The work highlights how our perception of reality—whether visual or historical—is not a direct, unmediated experience, but rather a construction of our brains based on the information we receive. This ties into the broader themes of the artwork about the often-unseen processes that shape our understanding of the world around us. The installation brings together elements from different times and places – the Civil War era monument, City Hall, and the viewer’s present moment – into a single point of intersection. The box itself can be seen as a representation of a world line segment, encapsulating a moment where historical narratives (represented by the monument) intersect with contemporary civic realities (symbolized by City Hall). The words “PUBLIC” and “PROPERTY” on the sides of the box mark points along this world line, highlighting the evolving concepts of ownership and access through time.

The Soldiers and Sailors Monument (1871) by Randolph Rogers is a 42-foot-tall memorial honoring the state’s 1,727 Civil War casualties. The monument’s base includes four cannons and allegorical women representing War, Victory, Peace, and History (depicted as a Black woman). Twelve panels list fallen servicemen, including those from the 14th Rhode Island Regiment Heavy Artillery, composed of men of color. This inclusion made it one of the first monuments to honor Black military men by name outside a cemetery.^[1] Also, the inclusion of a Black woman as the personification of History is an unusual choice for a monument of this era. This figure could be interpreted as an acknowledgment of the central role of slavery and emancipation in the Civil War narrative. Yet, its presence on a monument commissioned by nine white men also raises questions about representation and who gets to shape historical narratives. Rhode Island’s direct involvement in the slave trade speaks to the state’s historical complicity and stands at odds with the monument’s celebration of Union victory and emancipation. By inverting the image of the monument, the work suggests a need to invert or reimagine our understanding of this history, acknowledging the contradictions and complexities that are often glossed over in public memorials. The projection of this monument into the camera obscura box creates a time-bending interplay between past and present. The inverted image invites viewers to literally see the monument from a new perspective, considering its meaning and relevance in contemporary society. The deliberate reversal of City Hall in the projected image suggests a flipping of power dynamics. The notion of different realities is central to the piece. The physical reality outside the box is transformed into an inverted, contained reality inside. This transformation mirrors the way historical events are often reshaped and recontextualized over time. The installation invites viewers to consider multiple perspectives: the reality of the monument’s creators, the reality of those it purports to represent, the reality of contemporary viewers, and the inverted reality presented within the box.

[1] https://mail.commemorativeworksprovidenceri.digitalscholarship.brown.edu/items/show/5