Framing + Folding

Washington University in St. Louis

Collaborator: Megan Gill

Runner-up, Year End Show [Y.E.S.] Competition

This project, an exhibition proposal for the Sam Fox School Year End Show (Y.E.S.), takes its inspiration from the gallery space in which it is situated. The gallery with its pleated ceiling projects a series of lines in space, folded against one another. The folding of lines and the contrast of the orthogonal and the oblique set the tone for the exhibition. With a material palette of galvanized steel, wire, and wood lath, the frame of the exhibition presents an unfinished quality, a roughness that contrasts the clean, white gallery space. A series of five steel frames fold through the space, as a continuous line, one end of the line relating to the secondary entrance and the other end folding out beyond the typical confines of the gallery to bring the exhibition into the adjacent foyer. 

The individual projects are suspended lightly within the frame, relating to the lightness of the gallery and contrasting the heavy materiality of the steel frame. The darker tones and unfinished quality of the steel contrast the white paper of the boards and white paint of the walls, reinforcing the connection between project and gallery. Situated amongst the projects various openings begin to shift out of the steel frames to establish new circulations, and offer possibilities to experience the exhibition in a variety of sequences. The steel and wood of the exhibit not only suggests an economy of material, but fades to the background to highlight the gallery and the projects in their shared white, clean, accents. Frame and focus. At one scale the gallery is the frame, the exhibit as a collection, is the focus. At another scale the exhibit is the frame, the individual projects the focus. Exploiting the rough unfinished materiality of the steel and wood, the exhibit mediates the gallery and the projects, receding into the background while maintaining presence enough to establish possibilities for a varied experience.