On the eve of Saturday, February 21, a soon-to-be-demolished home in Seattle’s residential Greenwood neighborhood doubled as the site of the city’s newest art happening. It was the opening night of ONCE REMOVED, the curatorial brainchild of first-time creative partners Sammy Skidmore and Zoë Hensley. After a combined fifteen years working in the arts, many of those spent in Seattle’s fine art galleries (Traver and Foster/White, respectively), Skidmore and Hensley decided to step out on their own with ONCE REMOVED, or OR for short. 

The pair commissioned five Seattle artists—Nadia Ahmed, Rachael Comer, Jenikka Cruz, Gaeun Kim, and Ali E. Meyer—to create installation art specifically for the vacant space. They explored themes ranging from memory and transience to sexual trauma and grief, all while sacrificing their work to the same imminent future of demolition as the house itself. 

I talked to Skidmore and Hensley on Zoom the day before the opening night. It was install crunchtime: Skidmore phoned in from the Greenwood house, where she sat on the floor surrounded by ladders and cans of bright orange paint, while Hensley took the call from her truck, parked outside Home Depot. The following is part one of an ongoing conversation. 

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Maxine Arnheiter: Walk me through the genesis of the idea for ONCE REMOVED.

Zoë Hensley: It was an idea that I brought to Sammy last September. I had been looking at a similar thing in Berlin called Lost Art Festival, which happens once a year. It's kind of like ONCE REMOVED but on a bigger scale—art in abandoned factories. I was like, “Oh my god, this is such an inspiring, cool idea.” I brought that idea to Sammy, “Wouldn't it be so cool if we could do something like this?”

Sammy Skidmore: I remember I was on the beach in Tunisia when Zoë texted me. She was like, “What do you think about putting art in a house that’s going to be demolished?” And I was like, “Yeah, absolutely, let's do it!”

MA: Had you guys talked about doing a project together before this?

ZH: Yeah, we had talked about it in, like, jokey terms. We both work in galleries. We like hanging out with each other. Let’s do a project.

MA: What was the next step after the initial idea?

ZH: We started looking at truly abandoned properties, thinking maybe we could just break in. And then we quickly realized that if we were going to do it a second time, that would not be feasible [laughs]. And then I was like, “Oh, I know a developer—we can just use houses that we're allowed to use.”

MA: Is there something liberating about the house and its short life span in terms of what artists you're choosing, what kind of art is going up?

ZH: Yeah, absolutely. It grants the artist 100% freedom to do what they want with the space, which you really cannot do in galleries, even the non-commercial ones. Aside from making the space structurally unsound or unsafe, you can do whatever you want. But with a white wall gallery, you have to turn it over every month, you have to return it to a flat wall.

MA: When you brought this to the artists, how did they respond to the idea that it was going to get demolished? Were they excited by that?

SS: It’s like the ultimate test of letting go, for all the artists, letting go of their work, just sending it out into the ether. I think they were all enticed by it. Some of them deal with similar themes of impermanence already in their work. They were excited to respond to both the freedom and the constraints of the space. 

ZH: I think Gaeun did a particularly good job of responding directly to the site. Save for some slipcast doorknobs they made in their studio, they did the entire fabrication and conception of the idea on-site. We wanted people to really respond to this exact spot. I think that’s really the core of what Gaeun’s piece is.

MA: I'm assuming work has changed or evolved once the artists saw the space.

ZH: Definitely. Nadia Ahmed collected small objects from the house itself to cover in wax, and those are part of her installation. What she's using in her work was found in the house.

MA: And then there's something about the house itself. What does it mean to be putting art inside a house that will then be demolished? Do you see it as a dedication to the house? A celebration? Does that resonate at all?

ZH: For me, it's more of a material exploration of the house—using the house itself as the artwork. When you go into your own home, there's only so much you can do without totally fucking your shit up. You can paint things on a wall and rip the carpets up, but it's gonna be unlivable at some point—it's gonna cease to be a house. It's really interesting to inhabit a space where the limitations are removed, when you don't have to live in it, and no one is going to live in it. It's like—what can you do with yourself creatively when all of those constraints are taken away? What happens when a house ceases to be a dwelling and starts to become an object?

SS: ONCE REMOVED is the last thing that's going to happen in this house before it gets demolished. It’s a final blip in this structure’s life as it has existed for the past however many years. [To ZH] You think this house is like 70 years old?

ZH: It was built in 1952.

SS: Yeah, a last breath of life before it becomes nothing. 

MA: How long ago was someone living in the house [at the time of this interview]?

ZH: Two weeks ago. Really, really recently. 

MA: Wow. What was it like when you first walked into the house?

SS: I was so stoked, but also it was a little eerie—like, okay, someone was just here. I was definitely thinking about that a lot when we walked in, about what led the previous owner to make this decision to sell his house to developers. We're living these very parallel existences that are converging in this space. I grew up really close to here, as did Zoë. We're like five minutes from my parents' house.

ZH: There is something really eerie about that, you know, like, picking up exactly where he left off with the house. We were going through and being like, “Why did he do this? How did it get to this state?” In a way, it was his own art project because he had clearly tried to remodel it. There are a lot of little projects that he started and never finished.  

MA: When is it set to be demolished?

ZH: We don't know. They usually try to do it as quickly as possible because they don't like things just sitting there. I think they’d probably rather have an empty lot than an abandoned house.

MA: How does it feel inside the house now that the art is up? Has the energy shifted?

ZH: It definitely feels different. The ghost of this man's life is still present—we are physically, literally responding to it. But we've been there now for some pretty late nights. We keep making these jokes about moving into the OR house—but we kind of have. We're truly at home in this weird little space.

MA: How do you think you guys will feel when the space is demolished?

SS: I think I'll feel cool about it.

ZH: I think it's gonna be exactly like the feeling of when a good friend moves away, and you know they're not coming back.

SS: I liken it to a musical performance or a really good conversation with a friend. A moment of, “Oh, you really had to be there.” It's like an inside joke, honestly. And having it get demolished, it's like the lid on the container—it's thrown away, it’s done. 

MA: Let’s get into the Seattle of it all. Is there a certain vacancy in the Seattle art world that you see OR filling?

ZH: For sure. I feel like there are two modes in the Seattle art world. You have the super fine art galleries, like Traver and Foster/White, and those are really important spaces because they’re literally getting artists paid. And then there's another class of galleries—we call them skater galleries—and they show less commercial work, which is really cool. But both exist within the same ecosystem. The art scene in Seattle right now is almost entirely gallery-based. It can feel inaccessible and not the most interesting use of art.

SS: People think of Seattle as really lame and dead, and I want to say, no, there are really cool people here doing really cool things. Like yeah, Seattle's changing and dying, but the spirit still remains for the fucking real ones, okay? [Laughs]

MA: This is a project for the real ones, for sure.

SS: People bitch and moan all the time about how lame Seattle is now. I'm like, do something about it. Start a band. 

MA: You’re both born and raised in Seattle. Does OR feel like a Seattle-specific project? 

SS: It does feel very Seattle—not that something like this couldn’t happen outside of Seattle, but I think that Zoë and I being born and raised here is a really important part of this project. Doing this in a city that's not ours wouldn’t feel the same. This exact kind of situation and iteration would not be possible, or maybe not even feel appropriate, outside of Seattle. The city has obviously changed a lot since we were growing up. Parts of that make me sad, and parts of it feel overblown.

ZH: My relationship to Seattle feels really complicated, but for me, this project is rooted in a true unconditional love for Seattle and the art scene here. It's definitely not something you could just pick up and plop in a different place. I think it really has to happen here. It has to happen now in this particular time.

SS: I feel like both of us have a sort of complicated relationship with Seattle. 

MA: And you both left and came back.

ZH: Yeah, exactly. And there's something ultimately that, begrudgingly, has drawn us back.

SS: Yeah, I sometimes can’t believe it. I’m such a fucking towny. Get me out. [Laughs]

MA: So, what do the next 24 hours look like?

ZH: Ooh.

MA: Sorry, is that stressful?

ZH: No, it’s okay.

SS: I don’t think we have that much to do, dude! I mean, we’re going to get it done because there’s no other option but to get it done.

MA: It's DM for the address, right?

SS: Yeah.

MA: Why is that?

ZH: Mostly because it's a vacant house, and we really didn't want people to just, like, show up at random times thinking they could get in. And it’s in a residential area, so we wanted to control how many people could come. We want to be good neighbors. 

SS: I think it also feels a little bit cooler, a little more fun. Makes people feel like they're in the know.

MA: It's almost like a house party type of thing, like when you were high schoolers in Seattle. It’s kind of emotional. 

SS: Yeah, it's gonna be a party.

ZH: Definitely.

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The next installment of ONCE REMOVED is coming June 13. Follow them @once__removed to keep up to date.

ARCADE Studios is pleased to provide our design services, pro bono, to ONCE REMOVED for the marketing and promotion of their upcoming summer exhibition.