About

Across cultures, humans make, buy, find, share, or gift objects. While some objects are unique, mass production allows us to purchase indistinguishable objects to satisfy whims or fulfill needs. Over time, all objects take on new meanings as they remind us of moments, people, or places. ArtiFACT is a collaborative exhibit in which visitors scan barcodes affixed to 3D printed object replicas to hear the story of each item, as told by the person to whom it belongs. ArtiFACT begins with workshops that pair communities across cultures to seed ArtiFACT exhibits with stories and objects. Participants bring a meaningful object to photograph and use 3D printers to create replicas in the form of lithophanes. They interview each other and record descriptions of their object’s physical appearance, its personal and cultural significance, and a related memory.

The ArtiFACT Team would like to thank:

The Oberlin Center for Convergence (StudiOC) and GalleryOC

The Gertrude B. Lemle Teaching Center

The Research and Development Committee at Oberlin College

The Office of Undergraduate Research

The Institutional Review Board Committee

The Office of Communications at Oberlin College and Conservatory

Oberlin Center for Technologically Enhanced Teaching

Office of Foundation, Government, and Corporate Grants

The Oberlin Letterpress Studio

The Lorain County Community College Fab Lab

The TIMARA Department

The Cooper International Learning Center

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant to Oberlin College for the Oberlin Center for Languages and Cultures

Laura Baudot, Peter Swendsen, Afia Ofori-Mensa, Mathias Reed, Daphne John, Pam Snyder, Mary Lang, Lizzie Edgar, Ed Vermue, Tania Boster, Kyle Hartzell, Richard Wood, Leslie Joseph, Cathy Strauss, Julie Gulenko, Erich Burnett, Ryan Sprowl, Brad Burrer, Wendy Brill, Chris Mohler, Lilia Welsh, Kaiming Ma, Leslie Lang, Sophie Shalit, Oli Bentley, Tori Ervin, Ben Saltz, Bernie Fischlowitz-Roberts, Darren Hamm, and language professors Fang Liu, Yue Fan, and Kai Li.

Lastly, we would like to thank all of our ArtiFACT participants and volunteers