MIT 4.397—Special Problems in Visual Arts
     The Distribution of Meaning
     Professor: Allan McCollum


 

Yellow Feral Cat Pin
 

The Merrimack River Feline Rescue Society Collaboration Project

We decided to work with the Merrimack River Feline Rescue Society. This organization was of interest to us for a variety of reasons, in particular the substantial number of interrelated programs in which we could intervene. Among these programs is a feral cat feeding and trapping initiative which was of particular interest. We scheduled a visit during which two members of our group were able to follow one of the volunteers on her daily feeding route. Ultimately, we decided to generate a variety of objects to be distributed to the thirty-five volunteers in the program. We produced a symbol that could be used to unify these volunteers and delineate them from the rest of the Merrimack River Feline Rescue Society. This symbol is a tracing of a feral cat, clearly identifying the clipped ear as an indication of its relationship to the feeders. All of our objects were created in the shape of this symbol. The objects we made are as follows: pins (to be worn on the body of the volunteers), magnets (to be placed in the home of volunteers), coasters (to be placed in the home of volunteers), cling vinyl (to be placed on cars of volunteers), stencils, mouse pads (to be placed in the home of volunteers), and address markers (to be nailed to the feeding stations). Over six hundred individual objects were produced, along with a video documenting the entire project.

Read the full final report on the project HERE
See article in CAT CURRENTS about the project HERE

Some personal observations on the project by some of the creators:

Daniel Adams
Lilly Donohue
Oliver Lutz
Nomita Sawhney
     << see assignment