Rose Salane’s Lost & Found | Art21 "New York Close Up"

(woman speaking foreign language)

- It'd be 59.

(Pawnbroker) I give the same
price to sell or to pawn.

That's good? Okay.

Okay, please put it here.

- (Rose Salane) Okay.

- All right, I hope you
didn't pay too much.

How much did you pay?

- I didn't pay so, so much.

- How much do you think they're worth?

- Let's see.

This one, I wish is diamond
engagement ring, but it is not.

- Okay, how much would you?

- You know, it'll bring you like $1.

This one is silver.

- Okay.

- Retail, you can get
$25 if you wanna sell it.

This is metal, has no value.

(soft music)

- (Rose) I've always been drawn to objects

that reflect the everyday
movements of people

throughout the city.

I remember at a young age

doing these really extensive
commutes to high school

from deep Queens, going into
central parts of Manhattan.

I was commuting alongside people

that were engaging in
so many forms of labor.

People that were going
to their respective jobs

or respective sites of work.

I wanted just to understand

the experience of living in New York.

I follow a lot of auctions
throughout the city,

and one of them was the
MTA's Asset Recovery.

Anything that's lost on the subway

that isn't claimed for a year

goes into this Asset Recovery auction.

So I purchased 94 rings
from the MTA auction site.

I remember being taken aback

by this image of all these
rings that were lost.

It almost reminded me of an
overhead view of a crowd,

particularly this image of
the 2003 blackout in New York.

It almost felt like these
rings themselves had the power

to speak about commuters
living in New York.

I'm interested in how this set of objects

reflects a large cast of people.

(soft music continues)

I think the way that I work

is that I examine the many unknowns

that surround these lost
and unclaimed objects,

and then I begin considering
what measurements

or methods can assess
their potential value.

(soft music continues)

How do we determine
something is worth something

or of some importance
to a place or a person?

(machine whirring)

I was curious about taking
mitochondrial DNA samples

from the rings to potentially
get some information

about the biological makeup
of the previous owner

or a lineage, a genetic lineage.

- (Lab Worker) So for your experiment,

we're gonna look at a region of DNA

that tends to get these
mutations added up over time.

So as mom passes it down to daughter,

those mutations carry on.

- (Rose) So we'll swab some of the rings

and see if there is any
mitochondrial DNA on them.

(soft music)

When you have objects
that have been disengaged

in this way that's so intimate,

which is like obviously
through the finger,

you don't really know what
information you leave behind.

I was really wondering, how does an object

retain that information
about the previous owner?

(machine whirring)

This amount of information,

which could potentially just
be dirt, is from the ring.

- (Lab Worker) Yeah, that looks great.

So we need to nudge it a little.

Oh yeah, cool.

- (Rose) The one with a very faint
purple but no band is the ring

meaning that there was no
information that could be found.

(soft music)

What we had found through
this process was that

some forms of information
are just not available.

(soft music continues)

When I think about how this
collection was assembled,

that all these losses
were brought together

with the hope to be reclaimed,

there's a lot of humanity in that.

If science doesn't give
us the full picture,

then looking at value
in terms of spirituality

or speculation might give us

a different view of the life experience

of the previous owner.

So I wanted to have the rings
interpreted by a psychic.

The sentimental value of objects

and the way that we cast
our feelings onto things

is very much overlooked

and that's an incredibly
high form of value.

- (Psychic) She was a
young woman, a mother.

Spent a lot of time with her
family, with her children.

- (Rose) Do you know how many children

would she have had?
- Three.

- Three.

- Two boys, one girl.

I don't know why, but this one,

I'm not picking up anything.

This one's a very, very
special ring to someone,

and they was very sad when they lost it.

Till today, they still
try looking for this ring.

One of those macho, tough guys.

Very happy person.

Lot of class, very outgoing,
had a lot of hard times,

got into a lot of trouble,

and he also served time in jail.

- What is he currently doing now?

- He's kind of still up to no good.

He's not straightening out.

He wants to, he tried, but
it's just the way his life is.

(soft music)

- (Rose) The ring project really
led me to kind of understand

how to deal with this side
of loss, but also regaining.

I've always been interested in

how an object could
retell a personal history

but also the familiarity in them

that can trigger more
questions and stories.

(soft music continues)

These objects are just a small soundbite

of a large chaotic city.

(coins clinking)

Now I acquired around 800 pounds of coins

that were used to pay for bus fair.

They ranged from casino
tokens to religious pendants

to completely blank pieces of hardware.

To me, these coins reflect the population

and represent a lot of
really big themes in society.

(coins clinking)

Usually, the objects I find are lost

so I like to recirculate this object back

into the eyes of those that
are living in New York City.

(soft music continues)

I was dealing so much with these coins,

these close up moments,

seeing all of them
together and zooming out,

I was like, oh my goodness.

I really created this view
of the city that I inhabit.

(soft music continues)

When you look at these objects,

you see so many different people

and you so many different stories,

you see so many lives lived.

(soft music continues)