rebecca shapass

this third century

This body of research-based projects centers on Brown’s Dump – one of America’s first industrial reuse sites - located in Pittsburgh’s West Mifflin borough. Now home to several shopping centers and the carcass of what was once the third-largest mall in the world, the landscape has been drastically reshaped over 150 years of mining, industrial dumping, excavation, and construction. This project examines the links between geography, topography, industry, extraction, and consumer capital as it relates to promises of progress through a case-study of the site.

slag study (for this third century)

2024, 00:05:10, b&w, sound, 1920 x 7680 for 4 LCD monitors
stop-motion animation, still photographs, + ai generated video

slag study examines how human interventions, specifically the accumulation of industrial waste, dynamically reshape contemporary landscapes. Unfolding as a cartographic exploration of slag — the molten, steel byproduct whose cooled, volcanic-rock-like form composes the mountainous hills of Brown’s Dump — the work weaves photographs from historic aerial land surveys, railroad maps, and newspaper images, with microscopic imagery of slag, and documentation of the site today. The topographic study features text sourced from the artist’s research that evokes the historical context and poetic consequences of material movements. Composed primarily of stop-motion animation, the work’s mode of making underscores the notion of re-enlivenment while proposing alternative methods of mapping multifaceted landscapes.

slag study (for this third century) installed at 4Culture Media Storefront Gallery (Seattle, WA) - 2024

this third century

2024, 8.5 x 11”, xerox on vellum
gallery take-away text, ed. of 300 printed upon each install

A concrete poem composed to fill the footprint of the first floor of the Century III Mall. The text is composed of language culled from news articles, scientific papers, history books, and websites that were read while researching Brown’s Dump, slag production, the Century III Mall, the 1976 American Bicentennial, and the Roman Empire’s infamous “Crisis of the Third Century.”