My graduate studio was located in a historic building in Manhattan that had undergone several transformations over the past century. Originally built as a pasteurization and milk bottling plant in the early 1900s, the building was later repurposed during the Manhattan Project as a nuclear testing laboratory, where it conducted critical heat flux tests to determine the temperature at which a nuclear reactor would melt down. Eventually, it became home to the School of Engineering and the Computer Music Center, before being converted into studio spaces for the visual art MFA program.

While I was in the program, the building was falling apart. A protective netting had been installed across the ceiling to catch debris and prevent injury from potential collapses. I became interested in uncovering what my studio had looked like before through the colors of its walls. Guided by a conservationist, I carefully extracted a piece of the wall, and under magnification, I was able to see stratified layers of paint—forming a visual record of the space’s history.

As part of my ongoing observations, I transformed my studio into a camera obscura, projecting onto its walls the brand-new buildings rising just outside, structures being constructed for the university’s science departments.