At the corner of Spring Street and Varick in fashionable Soho Manhattan, a temporal and spatial rupture was exposed between an unassuming car park and neighboring building. This “no-place” became “some-place” in the winter of 2006, when burial vaults and their contents were unearthed. Rediscovered on historical maps and in archival records was the Spring Street Presbyterian Church. Active for only about 30 years (ca. 1820-1850), the burial vaults would, over time, fade into no-place as things came and went in the alleyway above.

Our exhibit considers permeable borders and transformative processes of experience and memory. Presenting the work of New York City artist Cora Jane Glasser alongside the historical artifacts that inspired some of these pieces, this exhibit draws on her previous work with “voids” —absences, gaps, or that which is unseen or unknowable—to explore modern perspectives of the past.