ARCHIVE #05 — Exhibit B
In 1999, I travelled to Seattle with Michael Marriott
@instamarriott2.0 as part of Exhibit B, a programme commissioned by Budweiser and curated by Nick Crosby
@inflate001 I was pregnant at the time with my first child.
The programme brought together six UK designer/s/ collectives to interpret American urban culture through their own disciplines. Michael and I as independents teamed up, and went to the west coast’ starting in Seattle. We spent our time moving through garage sales, thrift stores, diners, and supermarkets, absorbing a landscape through its objects, its excess, its humour, its contradictions.
At one point, somewhere between instinct and absurdity Michael bought a Chrysler Newport in Seattle and we drove to Portland to collect it!
Over the course of the trip, we generated more than 700 images! What became a ‘coaster to coaster’ archive of Americana. Garage sales, Photo-Mat booths, Safeways, hardware stores. The everyday, at scale.
I left early (pregnancy constraints) and Michael shipped the Chrysler Newport back along with the ‘Americana’. Looking back, it feels unthinkable. But it also says everything about the moment: a willingness to collect and covet within the sheer volume of excess, to take risks, to not yet be constrained by the systems we now understand more critically.
Our part in the exhibition that followed was a translation of that journey. A temporary archive. Coasters were zip-tied to pegboard, like evidence, or specimens, each one a fragment of the trip, presented in narrative groups. Alongside this, Michael constructed a garage sale within the space: metal railings framed it all with the car sat at the centre.
Everything was available for purchase. From this, a series of coaster collections emerged: Randy’s Diner. Gas Guzzlers.
Supermarket Sweep. Numbers. Road Signs
Which went on to sell in SCP and beyond.
The opening night was packed—a convergence of art, design, and people. A genuine moment.
