Mark Ramsey: Memory Map: Roof Line - State Street

Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts | Grand Rapids, Michigan

Memory Map: Roof Line - State Street is a site-specific installation by Grand Rapids-based artist Mark Rumsey. It features braids of repurposed textiles strung into planes floating in space. The planes represent Rumsey’s memories of the roof line of the dilapidated rental house he lived in as a youth. The strips of textile are also memories, representing connections with the six women who raised him, his mother and five older sisters. The third element of memory is the repurposing of textiles, which relates to his family’s reuse of materials and furniture throughout his childhood. 

Memory Map is a mash-up of process and materials, excess versus scarcity, privilege and misfortune, focused through Rumsey’s memories of childhood poverty. Rumsey’s experience growing up led him to believe he was ‘less than;’ that poverty was a condition he created, that the poor created. He’s reconciled these beliefs as an adult, now understanding poverty as a social failure, not an individual failure. 

Memory Map is both a personal narrative, reflecting memories of Rumsey’s childhood, and a larger conversation, dealing with the social issues of wealth and poverty in American society.