Midway Bardo
Midway Bardo
Mixed media
This installation was created during the Ten Chances No Hustle Urban Artists’ Residency and is a site-responsive work documenting the Midway neighborhood in St. Paul, Minnesota, as both a physical and metaphorical interlude. Named for its position as the midway point between two major cities, Midway is a place of transition—more often experienced as part of a journey than as a destination. It is a zone dominated by industry, commerce, logistics, and commuter traffic, interspersed with residential areas, non-profits, and artist studios.
While passengers traverse the neighborhood, unseen transformative processes unfold: materials are handled, processed, and recycled. The installation, created at the residency headquarters, arranges forms and materials to evoke a complex and haunting sense of site and space. Found objects and photographs collected from the surrounding area—detritus from factories, dumpsters, parking lots, train tracks, sidewalks, and alleyways—are assembled to reveal Midway’s unique identity as a metaphysical site.
The work draws connections to death, transmigration, and reincarnation. In Tibetan Buddhism, "Bardo" refers to the transitional state between life and rebirth—a concept that parallels Midway’s existence as a liminal space of perpetual transformation.