In 2007, Kristin Posehn began developing an artwork about the remote ghost town of Metropolis, the first master-planned community in Nevada. During a residency at CLUI (Center for Land Use Interpretation), Posehn researched the history of Metropolis and made site visits. She photographed every surface of the last façade still standing, a brick and mortar archway. For an exhibition at Museum de Paviljoens in 2008, she made a 1:1 scale replica of this archway and installed it on the last vacant lot in the city center of Almere, the Netherlands. Selections from the newspaper and brochure for Metropolis, plus other promotional materials, were republished and distributed alongside the exhibition. The project, titled Reclamation, was jointly produced by the Museum De Paviljoens, Almere, NL, and the Van Eyck, Maastricht, NL. Materials from Reclamation have been collected and archived by the Center for Art + Environment, Nevada Museum of Art, NV.

The submitted book, titled Reclamation, is a novella about this real artwork. The story is written from the standpoint of a fictional narrator encountering the work as it stood in the city of Almere, NL.

Text and installation by Kristin Posehn

Design by Jayme Yen with Kristin Posehn