SCAM | ell Projects

The Society for Care And Maintenance

SCAM first collected glass from the downtown-adjacent neighborhoods of Oakland in the summer of 2022. Then, a daily ritual of tending to streets where car break-ins occurred, SCAM donned a collection kit comprising a rubber brush and gloves, a small metal bin, and non-descript plastic bags. Notions of caregiving, ritual, and time were heavily considered throughout this physically demanding act that involved profound devotion and consistency. Shattered tempered car glass has become synonymous with Bay Area streets after a surge in car theft and break-ins swept the city. The remains of petty crime are recontextualized to shift focus from the binary of ‘victim’ and ‘aggressor’ towards the systems that obscure their acts of division.

The vacancy and slowness of the early pandemic (2020) and the perceived control and safety we relinquished during that time galvanized an alternative way of engaging with the city.

The preoccupation and output with glass were not premeditated or intended. Instead, the glass was a conduit, channeling an obsession with self-contained remnants, born and released from tension and purpose that were beautiful in their own way.

Their beauty was unsettling, seeing shattered glass in the morning light while recalling the very second it was broken. The situation had a way of marking time and could hold your attention soberly. The beauty was opportunistic in that it conditioned a form of care for something that wasn’t my own. I was curious about how difficult it can be to care reliably and actively, even when doing so is in our best interest.

What began with individual shards selected and placed inside a recycled vitamin bottle, then warranted protective gloves to avoid scrapes, a rubber-bristled brush to corral more fragments, a set of small bags to carry more away, and a toolkit to remain organized. Donning a toolkit daily was comparable to a uniform and, with it, a brand for civic reverence. It became a ritual in its consistency, performance in its animation, currency in its reappraisal, and ultimately a fiction in its presentation.

I was curious about the proper form of communication with this place, so in a way, I was conversing with home and actively pursuing alternative languages to shape the conversation.

The collection has grown to 250lbs.

Chapter 1

After identifying sites of trauma, the Society for Care And Maintenance separates the glass from coarse debris while capturing in-action self-portraits and forensic-style photographs of glass piles amidst newly maintained pavement.

Chapter 2

‘A Love Letter’ by: the Society for Care And Maintenance

The work features a glass field of shattered tempered car windows measuring approximately 5’ x 8’ with 15,000 individually laid fragments.

Chapter 3

In the ‘Writing Home’ series, the body remains integral to language-making while using a fixed medium to counter to the work’s prior impermanence. Here, the interplay of the hand guiding nuanced fragments of glass across the page, or the marks the hand makes to find balance, are literary devices.