These images are from a 6-month organizing and archiving project. The client wanted to combine all 4 of his storage spaces in New York and Philadelphia into one cohesive space that is a private museum, storage, and living archive. Only a few items are shown here, the collection contains costumes, personal clothing, sneakers, records, ephemera, memorabilia, art, music equipment, and personal items.

The artifacts were archived according to museum standards. My team and I photographed and entered information on them into an online inventory system that the client could access for tracking and insurance purposes. I created an inventory system with Art Galleria of over 150000.00 artifacts in over 100 categories.

The sneakers were in a particularly challenging condition. I designed custom archival boxes to store them, not shown in the photographs, for security purposes. Discogs, Sotheby’s, Christie’s auction houses, Flight Club, and various vendors established the provenance and the value of the items in the collection.

My frequent collaborator, Jeffery Henson Scales of the New York Times, and I photographed this process.  The story of the collection and these images were featured in an Op-Ed in the New York Times. The Op-Ed alternatively created an additional provenance and highlighted the existence of this important collection.

Please see the link below for the article and images on my Instagram @rebeccapietri

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/25/opinion/questlove-inspiration-collection.html

Tags

• Archiving |
• Creative Direction |
• Writing |