This is a collection of ordinary objects that narrate stories of everyday life in Jersey City.
The contributors to this collection select objects they own that they regard as symbols of their
meaningful experiences in this city. To maintain consistency, the contributors are asked to
select only objects that can be reproduced with a black-and-white photocopier. This way, the
objects are limited to sizes small enough to fit on a photocopier and, moreover, this restrictive
medium forces the selection of the most commonplace and prosaic objects. The resulting collection
creates a portrait of Jersey City not through the more obvious facets such as architecture but
through the more banal and quotidian elements in our surroundings. These items tell the story
of a city not through the “exceptional” but through the wastes, the residues, the remnants
and remembrances — the by-products of a typical urban existence.
THESE ARE OUR BY-PRODUCTS →
