Nicholas Fraser

The Paterson Project

 

powdered chalk installation in Paterson, NJ.

43' x 65'

2010

 

Two distinct texts overlapped on the floor of a defunct silk dying factory in Paterson, NJ.

The first layer uses selections from interviews with Paterson workers. The second uses selections from William Carlos Williams’ epic poem Paterson.

 

The worker selections combine recollections of factory processes, conflicts between labor and management and the day to day routines of factory life.

 

WCW’s Paterson is a sprawling text described as both a “poetic monument to and personification of the city” and “an in-depth look at the process of modernization and its effects”. The selected passages are a mix of self-reflective inner conversations from his struggle to make art ‘speak’ in a meaningful manner, meditations on memory, loss and the mutability of the written word at its point of inception.

 

Both layers can only be closely examined or read by walking directly upon them. As a result, the texts slowly blur into one another and become illegible. The viewer is given final discretion to exercise editorial powers.

The Paterson Project

powdered chalk installation in Paterson, NJ., 43' x 65', 2010

 

Two distinct texts overlapped on the floor of a defunct silk dying factory in Paterson, NJ.

The first layer uses selections from interviews with Paterson workers. The second uses selections from William Carlos Williams’ epic poem Paterson.

 

The worker selections combine recollections of factory processes, conflicts between labor and management and the day to day routines of factory life.

 

WCW’s Paterson is a sprawling text described as both a “poetic monument to and personification of the city” and “an in-depth look at the process of modernization and its effects”. The selected passages are a mix of self-reflective inner conversations from his struggle to make art ‘speak’ in a meaningful manner, meditations on memory, loss and the mutability of the written word at its point of inception.

 

Both layers can only be closely examined or read by walking directly upon them. As a result, the texts slowly blur into one another and become illegible. The viewer is given final discretion to exercise editorial powers.