Camouflaged History

This model house documents a project for Places with a Past, an exhibition of site-specific, public art curated for the 1991 Spoleto Festival to foster works addressing the history of its host city, Charleston, South Carolina. For their contribution to Places with a Past, Ericson and Ziegler arranged for a private home just outside the city’s designated historic district to receive a much-needed repainting using each of seventy-two commercial paint colors approved by the Charleston Board of Architectural Review for homes within the district. Army camouflage specialists at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, designed a new, regionally appropriate pattern for the house, and each patch of color was labeled with that paint’s official trade name. Names such as “Moorish maroon red” and “Confederate uniform grey” evoked venerated and at times problematic chapters in the city’s history.

Ericson and Ziegler’s camouflage pattern called attention to the newly painted house, and thereby to the racial and economic stratification and subtexts embedded, whether intentionally or not, in the city’s historic boundaries and preservation code. Through community meetings, Ericson and Ziegler discussed their intentions to neighborhood residents. At the end of the exhibition, the house was painted again in a color of the occupant’s own choosing.

Camouflaged History (Maquette) is not included in this slideshow.