Project Description
Legend tells that Harding and Son’s Windmill, operating during the 18th-century on a once-existing island between Camden and Philadelphia, is buried under Camden. During low tide a sandbar from what is now Coopers Poynt Waterfront Park formed a land-passage directly to the island critical for transporting goods, helping first make Camden a vital hub. Camden abounds with lost history. RCA Victor recorded the 20th-century classical and jazz greats; many original vinyls in its Cooper Street warehouse were dumped at the shoreline in 1971, along with the building which housed them.
With Camden Turntable, the discarded is unearthed, reconsidered. At Coopers Poynt Park—from the 1980’s until 2010 the site of a state prison cutting locals off from their waterfront–a wind-powered beacon becomes a shoreline focal point. Using wind energy captured by thousands of cut two-liter soda bottles, a cylinder spins above a circular colonnade that beckons park visitors to approach from all directions. Inside, a lightweight dome of 3-ply polypropylene masks, with oculus open to sky, forms a space to contemplate the cycles of Camden’s history as the city comes together again post-pandemic. Using quotidian plastics held individually in the hand or worn on the body and then thrown out, Turntable redefines the discarded as a latent collective material to harness Camden’s potential energy ahead.
Camden Turntable was commissioned for A New View an initiative of Camden’s Coopers Ferry Partnership (now Camden Community Partnership, Inc.) which is transforming six highly visible spaces along the city’s public transportation corridors from eyesores used for illegal dumping into multi-purpose community forums. These converted spaces will host dynamic temporary installations and creative programming through October 2021 that will provide a new view to the more than 65,000 people who travel through Camden daily and its 77,000 residents.