Art in the hall
From L.A. to Fort Dodge, an installation at FDMS will ask students to identify the obsolete
When students and staff return to the Fort Dodge Middle School this fall they’ll find a new art installation in their building.
Not only will that happen, but in order for them to get into the auditorium they’ll have to walk under part of it. It’s big and sleek, and it bridges the hall from east wall to west.
The piece, called “Cabinet of Obsolescence,” is a creation of Los Angeles-based artists Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues. The art and installation were paid for by a grant from the Catherine Vincent Deardorf Foundation.
The work was being installed this week by a crew from Los Angeles, including Sarah Peyton.
“It fits the space well,” Peyton said. “It was designed for the space.”
She said putting the sculpture together would take the crew about a week. It was shipped here by truck in pieces.
The creation contains eight cabinets as part of its design. Each is a lit glass-faced space that will be filled with objects chosen by the students and staff once they return to school.
Asked what was the criteria for inclusion, Peyton answered that the objects have to be something the students consider obsolete.
For middle school students, that could be a host of things from the faddish fidget spinners to their parents’ vinyl record albums.
Peyton has her own idea.
“A floppy disc,” she said.
The art is also built to withstand the rigors of residing in a school hallway. The creators fully expect a student or two to sit on the piece, perhaps climb it and, certainly, touch it. It’s built tough.
“It’s made from the same material they make truck bed liners with,” Peyton said.
Jennifer Lane, director of communications for the Fort Dodge Community School District, was on hand to watch the installation progress.
She got an idea of what to include in one of the cabinets from her daughter.
“My daughter asked me what a pay phone was,” Lane said. “I told her and she asked ‘You have to put money in it?”
Once the installation crew returns to the L.A. studio, Peyton said they will welcome updates on how the students respond to the piece and what sort of obsolete objects find their way into the cabinets.
In addition, Lane said the public will have a chance to experience it once school starts.
“In September,” she said. “We’ll have a ribbon-cutting and open house.”