The Elsewhere Artist Collaborative is a collaborative, creative environment redefining a historical and cultural retail space in terms of an artistic medium. Within this living instillation of artists, the contents of a thrift shop become the source of inspiration, motivation, and basic building blocks of an artistic representation of artists. A museum of antiquity created by artists, operating in a community of creative peers, exploring new medium, and watching their personal stories unfold in the drama that is the store.

Elsewhere is located in the Greensboro, North Carolina downtown historic district. Elsewhere houses a gallery/orientation center, press office, studio, kitchen, performance venue, library, fabric workshop—all installation pieces in themselves which serve as interactive environments that enable artists to comment on, discuss, and recreate traditional art, social, and cultural institutions. Artists are encouraged to redesign space and its accompaniments (objects) for a contextual artistic experiment that exposes process as art form. Artists are expected to integrate the plethora of 70 years of thrift resources (toys, furniture, books, clothing, fabric, etc. etc. etc.) or their experience at Elsewhere into the content (subject or object) of their work. The objects within the space do not permanently leave the space, providing for the exploration of the potential for a fixed but transforming set of objects. Elsewhere artists explore traditional and emerging media and media fusion, representational possibilities, and community/communication models.

I came to Elsewhere in the Summer of 2006 as an artist in residence. I felt a connection to the space and what it represents because much of my photographic work is based on the idea that memories are retained in the things we hold dear, the things that are left behind. Often these are tokens of little to no monetary value but mementos priceless nonetheless. As I explored the many rooms of Elsewhere I witnessed many instances where adults allowed an object to instantly transform them into the child who played with dolls or the young man who long ago went off to war. The ability that things have to trigger thoughts and memories is astounding and amazing. This is the resulting imagery from that summer.