The Lost & Found Factory intake clerk calls out, “Have you lost something you’d like us to find?”
Most people can think of something that they wish they could reclaim, and they move to the counter and begin to think, talk and eventually begin drawing their memory of it on the request form. Their requests make their way through the factory and pass through the hands of workers who set out to find them. When found, they are documented, packaged and placed for pickup.
The first Lost & Found Factory took place in the center of one of Pittsburgh’s early industrial districts and set out to honor the city’s past creative laborers as well as to celebrate personal memories of the festival visitors. Visitors to the factory saw the artistic work that went into making these new renditions of their lost objects, and this labor, in turn, paid homage to the often invisible work that went into making the original items. In March of 2018, the Lost & Found Factory made a visit to Denton Texas, at the University of Northern Texas for another round of creative ‘finding’.
