Sam Holleran’s video Surplus is an investigation of Elsewhere’s army surplus collection that considers what happens to military goods after war’s end. By combining images excerpted from the Carolina Sales Company Catalog with those of popular advertising and military toys from the same time period (roughly the 1950s-1970s), it draws out the ways that producers of combat gear reoriented their production in the wake of World War II.
Samuel Holleran is an urbanist, interdisciplinary artist, writer, and design educator. He works at the intersection of art, urban design, and civic engagement. He is interested in mobilizing popular forms of visual culture like hand lettering, vernacular printing, model-making, and animation to address real-life issues and explore under-examined histories.Sam works as a Design Educator at the Center for Architecture Foundation and the 92nd Street Y in New York City, and previously worked at the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP). From 2014-2015 he is the Participatory Design Fellow with the Design Trust for Public Space, working with the Queens Museum of Art and the NYC Parks Department to engage communities surrounding the Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
