Incidental Container, 2024

A project navigating the loopholes of promotional contracts and subscription plans that temporarily offer free storage space.

Incidental Container is a singular artwork and group exhibition that originally took place in a CubeSmart Self Storage unit for the duration of a “First Month Free” promotional contract.

With works contributed by:

Jake Brush • Courtlin Byrd • Theresa Faison • Sarah Friend • Xavier McFarlin • Rebecca Millsop • Zach Nader • Georgica Pettus • Molly Soda.

This exhibition was first conceived and proposed to artists in the form of a poem, which can be seen here.

Participating artists were asked to contribute a work from their own storage to be transferred into storage as exhibition.

As part of the lease agreement there would be no public access to this project, in which case a web-based virtual tour was created.

The web-based virtual tour can be experienced here.

Demo video of browser-based virtual tour.

After the virtual tour was launched online, the physical exhibition was taken down fifteen days into the lease term.

The html code representing the virtual exhibition was then sublimated in fabric and hung in a volume within the container for the remainder on the rental lease.

The rental was ended one day prior to payment.

The coded-fabric was then sewn into purchasable tote bags— a continuation of the container as an exhibition of peoples things.

The totes were sold on Metalabel and profits were split with the artists for their participation.

Incidental Container totes can be purchased here

A process diagram was developed to help viewers better understand the timeline and procedures.

I’ve come to think of the project in a few ways:

• A series of processes that dictates the conditions for exhibition.

• A format for artworks to exist, and organically form a context on their own.

• A product to be reformatted as both, an object and new exhibition.

As part of a social media campaign the Incidental Container brand identity was established.

Leading up to a 2nd iteration of this exhibition at PWA, a trailer was produced, which visually summarized the procedures the project followed.

Incidental Container Trailer, 2024

Poster for 'Incidental Container' exhibition showing a closed metal roller door with graffiti of a red open mouth. The top of the poster states 'PWA Presents' and the title 'Incidental Container' in large red letters, with the subtitle 'exhibition = storage + logistics.' The bottom lists artists' names and details about the opening date and time.

Incidental Container was presented at PWA as scanned and filmed documentation of the containers contents, with digital documentation streaming from a free Dropbox account.