Palimpsest - April 2025
Contamination discusses the history of the Butterworth SuperFund site at 1450 Butterworth Street SW, which served as a public dumping site from 1950 to 1967, a place that both individuals and corporations could discard their problems into a toxic abyss. Irreversible ground contamination from non-decomposable materials and uncontained PFAS chemicals scorched the land even after reclassifying it as a sanitary landfill. In the 1970’s the Federal Government officially seized control over Butterworth in order to maintain the damage, officially classifying it as a SuperFund site.
Over the years, with an increase of “hostile architecture”, hundreds of unhoused citizens of Grand Rapids have taken refuge atop the cancerous island. Forced to make it their home, all while city leaders seem content with this solution. After all, under capitalism we are all accustomed to burying our problems rather than taking the time to find ecological or humane solutions.
In Contamination, I have juxtaposed the cruel reality and physical displacement of “hostile architecture” while simultaneously encroached by and buried under the city's discards.