trace

Trace is a site-specific installation that responds directly to the history and architecture of the Howland Cultural Center. Designed in 1872 by Richard Morris Hunt, this landmark building served as the public library for more than a century before its collection was permanently relocated. In Trace, fabricated book effigies made of translucent vellum paper line the original library shelves on the second-floor balcony. By filling these empty spaces with ghostlike, diaphanous forms, Trace resurrects the building’s civic past while meditating on the diminishing physical presence of books in our contemporary landscape.