According to Susanna Crum's thematic statement "Guardians: Care-taking and Place-making on St. James Court" explores the definition of personal identity and connection to place as a person "revives and revises" the history of his or her own home.
The place she's chosen to describe for this multi-media series is a circular row of Victorian homes called St. James Court, in Louisville, Kentucky, built around the world's exposition of 1883. Crum photographed the homes, and then conducted a series of interviews with their owners, and preservationists intent on preserving that aspect of the town's heritage. What she presents before us, and what is seen at the Mid America Print Council exhibition, is a print which gives an bird's eye view of the St. James Circle, and the south end of the world's fair area. She has located and blown up, in circled areas, the homes she was intent to discuss.
This is only one aspect of Crum's multi-media presentation of the series; which includes a group of phone boxes, each containing a photograph of one of the homes with a telephone. The phone's recording is of a group of preservationists and home owners talking about the importance of saving these historic structures. Why the interest in this topic? Well, Crum grew up in Louisville, and has a long-standing interest in preserving old things, the poetic 'goings'-on inside boxes and containers, and creating a conceptual engagement.
Crum is trying to stretch the parameters of printmaking with this multi-media approach, and she is fast gaining interest. The question to ask is only whether these multi-media projects necessitate the use of printmaking to complete her ideas. Her interest in bringing back older methods of presentations - like the photo view finders, is welcome, and the combination with well-crafted presentations is also welcome. I do not see that her use of printmaking is the main component to this work, but a total integration of media, which is welcome most of all.
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