Many archives contain material objects. However, these objects may or may not be interesting on their own: what gives them meaning are the stories behind them and how these stories are told by the archivists. When archaeologists excavate objects from a historical site, they piece together stories that explain how the objects they find are entangled with each other. The assemblage of objects in this archive is therefore an assemblage of stories about the tidal Schuylkill river.
This object, a blue tennis ball half, was found near the railroad crossing at Locust Street on the Schuylkill Trail in Philadelphia, PA. However, it was found in its current, destroyed state: the irregular tear on the object suggests some sort of violent and perhaps unintended end to its useful life cycle as a tennis ball. Given the prevalence of dogs that are walked down the Schuylkill trail and the excavation site’s proximity to a dog park, it is possible that the ball was torn apart by a canine. On the other hand, the much more immediate proximity to railroad tracks and the object’s total state of decimation also suggests that it could have been run over by a train. In its afterlife, the tennis ball raises questions of agency and methods of destruction—and it can be used to tell stories about monstrous human+canine+machine+river assemblages.
in no particular order...
human + canine
machine + human
human + river
canine + machine
river + canine
machine + river
what other stories can be told through this object?
