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Curatorial Statement:

We already have a world-class parkno need to make a new one.
Mom- A-Bear (Former Bulb Resident)

The Refuge in Refuse: Homesteading Art and Culture project is an interactive, mobile,
transmedia collection of visual and sound data reflecting the intersection of
architecture, art, ecology and people homesteading on a decommissioned shoreline
construction dump located in Albany, California. For more than two decades artists,
recreationalists, and the homeless share the bulb exploring borders between public and
private urban space. The Refuge in Refuse project utilizes sound (stories), video,
photography and 3D scans collected on the peninsula and shares these assets in the
SOMArts exhibition and, publically, in three versions of interactive and mobile media:
website, augmented reality, and a tablet application.

The project uses storytelling to address human adaptation to changing social and
environmental conditions using the theme of The Simulacra and Simulations as
addressed by philosopher Jean Baudrillard. (Jean Baudrillard, Selected Writings, ed.
Mark Poster (Stanford; Stanford University Press, 1988), pp.166-184) This theme uses
Simulacrum to exemplify the difference between what is territory and what is on the
map. In this case the dividing lines upon who is responsible for the land and the people
of the Albany bulb is questionable amongst surveyors, county, state, and municipal lines
and what the residents have defined as their territory, or their community in which they
have created infrastructure in the form of a welcoming center, library, castle and
residence.

There are multiple realities of the interface between nature and culture, private and
public, homeless and recreationalist as they manifest themselves at the Albany Bulb.
The former landfill serves as an example for how homeless homesteading, ecology and
politics is addressed in California law and perception. What is real and what is fantasy is
subjective on the somewhat isolated peninsula. For some it is a haven where the
residents have created their own sense of reality by creating castles for fairies and a
gladiator ring for boxers. For others the reality is reflected as chaos and anarchy in a
society where law and order create the baseline for community.

The Albany Bulb has been a source of controversy ever since contractors started
dumping construction debris there since 1963. The mudflats that form the base of the
landfill migrated from the Sierra Nevada, residue from the gold rush when hydraulic
gold mining unleashed sediment from rivers for delivery to the San Francisco Bay. In
1963, on top of dreams of gold, a construction dump was born and a human-made spit
of land took shape, supporting rebar and cement slabs along with marble from
Richmonds demolished City Hall and the city of Berkeleys former library.


The San Francisco Bay plays a critical role in the sustainability of the economy of
California. After the dumping was stopped at the Albany Bulb Landfill in 1983, soil
accumulated and plants began to take root. The industrial landfill looks rather lush in
comparison, today. Still the only individuals who regularly used it are homeless people
(camp dwellers,) some renegade artists, and dog walkers. The landfill has transformed
the original tide lines, brought oil, lead paints, asbestos, and other industrial toxins to
the area, as well as providing a homeland for a group of cast offs for over twenty years.

This year the Albany City Council voted to begin transferring the land from the city of
Albany over to the California State Park System. Transferring this land entails the
eviction of the residents. This eviction has brought changing tides for a group of people,
a body of water, and a spit of land. The exhibited work includes video clips to be utilized
for interactive mobile media devices and on-line resources highlights these
transformations and embraces ideas of placemaking, a theory used in public art and
communities around the world to design, create and enliven public spaces promoting
health, happiness, and well being. The people, plants, animals, architecture and artwork
that have accumulated on the peninsula create place and culture. The video clips utilize
storytelling and cultural productions by landfill residents, which embrace ideas of
placemaking as a springboard to explore the Albany Bulb, a unique eco system on the
brink of change.

In the exhibition we are honored to highlight several of the former residents of the
Albany Bulb Landfill both as contributing artists and as subjects in the artworks and
investigations of others. We would need volumes to do real justice to this extraordinary
place and the individuals who have made this landfill not only their home, but a
significant destination point brimming with vitality, culture, and spirit.