THE ORPHAN TRAIN navigates on a QTVR re(con)FIGURE(d) 8 traintrack through a miniaturized landscape. Click on each Stop-Overs to visit. Or navigate by:

THEME_ l_ SITE ARCHITECTURE_ l_ EXHIBIT ROUTE

THE DOUBLE LOOP — FIGURE 8 TRAINTRACK — with its loops intersecting — refers to the orphan/adoptee’s dual history. Drawer locks, with no matching keys, stud its winding trail and the many gaps and spaces in the pretzel-structure — like the genealogical rifts in the adoptee’s past, present and future — are bridged with door hinges. All of the assemblages are constructed of disparate & reclaimed materials as there is a play on using ‘found’ objects with a fragmented or unknown past, to reflect the foundling or adoptee’s own blurry knowledge of her/his genealogical history.

For this project, it was important that I use materials with a past history [worn, used, cast-off, discarded, forgotten] which can refer to the hidden history of the adoptee. I am attracted to the mystery of old,tattered objects — the questions that cannot be answered much like my own personal history as an adoptee with little biological information. There is a richness to found pieces as they allude to a past function and purpose. I take pleasure in including cast-off, unwanted objects into larger productions: like casting ‘unknowns’ in a play. I am giving order to their displacement.

I am attracted to old objects because in their disrepair and worn surfaces, there is more room for inventing narratives. While evoking nostalgia, weathered material also triggers different memories for each person.