Project Alex

2012 What do people associate with Auburn, NY? In search of inspiration to create a work that would speak about Auburn’s history, first time collaborators Mary Giehl and Robert Loring visited the Cayuga Museum of History & Art and Swaby’s, a local bar that proudly displays Auburn’s “electric chair.” They also found out that Auburn prison was the first to introduce black and white stripping on inmates’ clothing and was the first prison to use an electric chair for execution in 1890. Further discussion had us talking about fashion and how we today are prisoners of the fashion industry. Project Alex then came together with the idea of high fashion using black and white stripped fabric and with playful accessories, using the electric chair as the starting point.
The installation is at the Schweinfurth Art Center in Auburn, NY