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.
The work features a glass field of shattered tempered car windows measuring approximately 5’ x 8’ with 15,000 individually laid fragments.
ARTIFACTS
Writing Home series
The tension between assembly and disassembly, focusing on the acts of care and devotion we perform in the aftermath of destruction
2024
Graphite on illustration board
20 x 32 inches (50.8 x 81.28 cm)
Showing at Zhou B Art Center . Chicago, IL
The 1st Annual Black History Month Festival of the Arts
1/17/2025 - 3/16/2025
A Search for the truth buried beneath layers of what could have been said, we might have meant, or was left unsaid.
2024
Graphite on illustration board
20 x 32 inches (50.8 x 81.28 cm)
Rests. Moments of pause to remember the weight.
2024
Graphite on illustration board
20 x 32 inches (50.8 x 81.28 cm)
Homecoming Collection
Coming to terms with how a place has shaped you requires a particular language, perhaps one born from a shattered and reimagined self.
Homecoming Letter No.2
2024
Graphite on illustration board
18 1⁄2 x 24 1⁄2 inches (46.99 x 60.96 cm)
Homecoming Letter No.4
2024
Graphite on illustration board
18 1⁄2 x 24 1⁄2 inches (46.99 x 60.96 cm)
CHAPTER 1
There’s a vulnerability required to act in such a way. The performance is innocuous yet suspicious and often elicits public curiosity. Tending to a site has even kindled frustration from passersby. Simply put, it wasn’t my situation, so it wasn’t my responsibility.
I was intrigued by the terms of engagement in public space. The performance is an act of self-conditioning, exerting pressure on our contemporary social contract. It’s palpable how my body and actions can measure against anti-black stereotypes of public engagement, especially concerning sites of break-ins. It underscored the breach of contract; for me, tending to shared domain unsolicited is cause for worry.
Here’s where the Society for Care and Maintenance came to be: a fictitious organization ‘solicited’ to tend to sites. So you don’t have to be concerned. However, it’s just a scam.
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.
No.5: Site documentation. Found shattered tempered car glass, Oakland, CA, 2022
Single Channel Video (2:37 minutes, loop)
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.
Given the precarious nature of the installation, the work calls into question the maintenance of contested boundaries and our perceptions of power and self-control.
To present the work, SCAM has laid each fragment, one by one, directly onto an oak board floor, creating a reflective carpet that is continuous and intermittent, material and immaterial. Post-exhibition, SCAM has retrieved the glass to undergo a new phase of archival documentation (CH.3), a phase that seeks to pair each nuanced glass fragment with a static reflection before the glass is reimagined once again.
