For And Nor But Or Yet So, 2021

4-color digitally printed translucent window vinyl
63 Windows, 2,400 square feet
Commissioned by Poetry Foundation
Photos by James Prinz

This “lightbox” installation celebrates the value of connections: connector words that string together other words to make wonderful prose; connector people, centered on Patricia Smith, that bridge her ancestors to descendants; and poetry itself as the connector that brings each of us a bit closer to one another. The poems gathered throughout this installation as QR codes collectively create a “family tree” of work selected by Smith, tracing generative connections between poets past and present. Appearing in our palms with the aid of a technology based on weaving, these poems are both a call to our humanity and branches of the larger body of poems cared for in this building’s library, website, and magazine archives. In this installation, poems have been placed amid interwoven patterns of healing plants: ever expanding layers of beauty, nourished by rain.

“Enlivening our Spaces: Transformative Walls,” CODA Magazine, March 2023

Brian Hieggelke, “Editors note: Bob Faust is having a magnificent moment,” Newcity, December, 2021

LeeAnn Trotter, “Bob Faust Creates 4 Major, Simultaneous Art Exhibits in Chicago,” NBC 5 News, November 4, 2021