Last Night
Last Night: Asbestos and Ghosts at the Abandoned INS Building
I spent Sunday evening at a five-hour town hall and potluck for Ignition Northwest, a fantastic organization I've been rather gung-ho about after tending bar at this year's Seacompression. About 50 burners gathered at the former Immigration and Naturalization Services building, which is now being renovated as an art space.
In mid-October, InScape held an open house, showcasing video installations, projections, a skeleton in a dungeon and some disturbing yet beautiful performance art (all related to detainment, naturally). A month later, with the exhibits cleared out and the drizzly, dark night lurking, the conditions were perfect for a building tour...
But first, a note on the food: Someone made the strategic decision to have the official feast at the end of the meeting, so during breaks we hovered like vultures around bowls full of seriously amazing chow — rice pudding, falafel, yams with pineapple and pomegranate seeds—only to be beckoned back to the adjacent conference room minutes later. "OK, everybody get yer ass back in here!" the moderator bellowed at a bunch of hungry, chatty stragglers. That's when I recalled all the polite forums and networking events I've been to this fall, and let out a content, relieved, kombucha-filled sigh. Real community!
But, alas, real community involves responsibility, so we spent another hour or two brainstorming ways to support more types of art, connect people with the right tools or extra hands (them installations are big!), and live up to the community's principle of radical inclusion .
After dinner, dessert and then more dinner, a handful of us caught up with our moderator, Kay, for a super-secret tour of the INS building. We swept through passageways and into abandoned rooms, many of which were blocked off during the official open house. Bounding noisily up a narrow staircase, we ran into the building supervisor (a friendly young fellow named Mark) who informed us that if the light shuts off, "It's probably the ghost."
He continued showing us rooms full of deconstruction debris, buckets of asbestos and holding cells ...
But weirdest of all was the attic. It was there that Mark discovered several metal beds, which he brought down to display in the infirmary. Even though he is accustomed to all sorts of routine old-building noises — clanging pipes, stairwell echoes — what he experienced that night was, he said, completely different": a loud shuffling from behind, persisting as he hauled each bed down the stairs and ran back up, terrified, for the next.
Is there really a ghost? There was only one documented death during the building's time as a detention center. Still, everyone on staff has encountered some kind of presence, mostly making mischief. (A bicycle appeared in the old gold safe one day, out of nowhere, and nobody can account for its appearance.) And who knows how so many artists will transform the character of the space?
Lots more photos can be found on Flickr.
In mid-October, InScape held an open house, showcasing video installations, projections, a skeleton in a dungeon and some disturbing yet beautiful performance art (all related to detainment, naturally). A month later, with the exhibits cleared out and the drizzly, dark night lurking, the conditions were perfect for a building tour...
But first, a note on the food: Someone made the strategic decision to have the official feast at the end of the meeting, so during breaks we hovered like vultures around bowls full of seriously amazing chow — rice pudding, falafel, yams with pineapple and pomegranate seeds—only to be beckoned back to the adjacent conference room minutes later. "OK, everybody get yer ass back in here!" the moderator bellowed at a bunch of hungry, chatty stragglers. That's when I recalled all the polite forums and networking events I've been to this fall, and let out a content, relieved, kombucha-filled sigh. Real community!
But, alas, real community involves responsibility, so we spent another hour or two brainstorming ways to support more types of art, connect people with the right tools or extra hands (them installations are big!), and live up to the community's principle of radical inclusion .
After dinner, dessert and then more dinner, a handful of us caught up with our moderator, Kay, for a super-secret tour of the INS building. We swept through passageways and into abandoned rooms, many of which were blocked off during the official open house. Bounding noisily up a narrow staircase, we ran into the building supervisor (a friendly young fellow named Mark) who informed us that if the light shuts off, "It's probably the ghost."
He continued showing us rooms full of deconstruction debris, buckets of asbestos and holding cells ...
But weirdest of all was the attic. It was there that Mark discovered several metal beds, which he brought down to display in the infirmary. Even though he is accustomed to all sorts of routine old-building noises — clanging pipes, stairwell echoes — what he experienced that night was, he said, completely different": a loud shuffling from behind, persisting as he hauled each bed down the stairs and ran back up, terrified, for the next.
Is there really a ghost? There was only one documented death during the building's time as a detention center. Still, everyone on staff has encountered some kind of presence, mostly making mischief. (A bicycle appeared in the old gold safe one day, out of nowhere, and nobody can account for its appearance.) And who knows how so many artists will transform the character of the space?
Lots more photos can be found on Flickr.
