Andrew Causey
Andrew Causey a visual anthropologist and faculty member in the Cultural Studies Program, Liberal Education Department, Columbia College Chicago
Andrew accidentally initiated the Cultural Re-use Research Collective one day in a conversation with colleagues Paul Camic, Stephanie Shonekan, and Erin McCarthy when he related the following story to them:
Andrew accidentally initiated the Cultural Re-use Research Collective one day in a conversation with colleagues Paul Camic, Stephanie Shonekan, and Erin McCarthy when he related the following story to them:
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One gray day on the way to the train, with the cold and the drear of the sky forcing me to look down, I saw a raised flowerbed in the lawn between the gtgtgt
sidewalk and the road. There was nothing particularly unusual about that sight,
except that this bed was formed by a pentagon of rain gutters cut with beveled ends, stacked three high, and screwed together with drywall screws. I cheered the unknown tinkerer, thinking to myself, "finally, someone who recycles!" And then I began to wonder: is this work actually recycling, or is it something more creative (and more interesting), something closer to "re-use?"
When the group began talking about this, we realized that many of the aspects of human behavior and creation in which we are each interested have to do with this general idea of cultural re-use.
Causey's interests have unknowingly flirted with this area of interest for years. During his anthropological field research with the Toba Batak people in North Sumatra, he made note of all the ways materials and ideas got re-invigorated and re-formed, from ancestral designs that were creatively re-envisioned as souvenirs for westerners to carving knives made from cast-off truck suspension springs. More recently, he has become interested in secondary sales of objects in the west (in places such as garage sales and flea markets), where possessions find not only new owners, but also new uses, meanings, and values.
In addition to his research, Causey's artworks reflect his interest in re-use, as well. Since the 1980s, he has created assemblage sculptures of found objects, often placing them in urban and rural environments to slowly decay, or to surprise wanderers with sharp eyes. In a homier arena, Causey has created rag-dolls from scraps and pieces found at yard sales and thrift stores, making the most of a collection of dented and chipped buttons as their eyes.
Causey is interested in cultural re-uses in both a practical and ethnographic sense and a philosophical one.
As a way to explain his interest in the used, the forgotten, the mislaid, Causey says, "A thing with a previous use brings with it, somehow (probably inexplicably), its previous stories. The scratch, the ding, the worn-down edge, are all inklings of past events, not so much because they actually tell tales, but (more interestingly and mysteriously) because they imply a history or hint at an experience. This patina of prior use is often downplayed or hidden in manufacture, and is stridently obvious even as it mumbles about itself incoherently."
Mailing Address
Andrew Causey, Ph.D.
Cultural Studies Program
Columbia College Chicago
600 South Michigan Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60605.1996 USA
Email: acausey@colum.edu
Telephone: 312.344.7293
Web site: http://culturalstudies.colum.edu
Causey's interests have unknowingly flirted with this area of interest for years. During his anthropological field research with the Toba Batak people in North Sumatra, he made note of all the ways materials and ideas got re-invigorated and re-formed, from ancestral designs that were creatively re-envisioned as souvenirs for westerners to carving knives made from cast-off truck suspension springs. More recently, he has become interested in secondary sales of objects in the west (in places such as garage sales and flea markets), where possessions find not only new owners, but also new uses, meanings, and values.
In addition to his research, Causey's artworks reflect his interest in re-use, as well. Since the 1980s, he has created assemblage sculptures of found objects, often placing them in urban and rural environments to slowly decay, or to surprise wanderers with sharp eyes. In a homier arena, Causey has created rag-dolls from scraps and pieces found at yard sales and thrift stores, making the most of a collection of dented and chipped buttons as their eyes.
Causey is interested in cultural re-uses in both a practical and ethnographic sense and a philosophical one.
As a way to explain his interest in the used, the forgotten, the mislaid, Causey says, "A thing with a previous use brings with it, somehow (probably inexplicably), its previous stories. The scratch, the ding, the worn-down edge, are all inklings of past events, not so much because they actually tell tales, but (more interestingly and mysteriously) because they imply a history or hint at an experience. This patina of prior use is often downplayed or hidden in manufacture, and is stridently obvious even as it mumbles about itself incoherently."
Mailing Address
Andrew Causey, Ph.D.
Cultural Studies Program
Columbia College Chicago
600 South Michigan Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60605.1996 USA
Email: acausey@colum.edu
Telephone: 312.344.7293
Web site: http://culturalstudies.colum.edu
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