ONE-HANDED WINTER
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
One-Handed Winter is an ongoing photographic archive documenting single gloves found across the streets of New York City. Once separated from their owners and their matching pairs, these ordinary objects become traces of human presence within the urban landscape. Through repeated observation and photographic documentation, the project explores the relationships between everyday objects, material memory, and the unnoticed details of city life. Each photograph preserves a fleeting encounter, gradually forming a visual record of what the city leaves behind.
PROJECT STATEMENT
My practice is driven by a curiosity about how ordinary objects carry traces of human experience. I am particularly interested in things that remain visible in public space but are rarely considered worthy of attention. In One-Handed Winter, a single glove becomes a reminder of an absent body. Its material, shape, and position suggest histories of touch, movement, and everyday routines, even when the identity of its former owner remains unknown. Rather than attempting to reconstruct these unknown stories, I use photography to acknowledge their traces. The project reflects my belief that careful observation can offer an alternative way of understanding the city—not only through its monuments and institutions, but also through its smallest and most temporary details.
01 / INTRODUCTION
Introduction
The project began during my winter walks through New York City, when I started noticing single gloves scattered across sidewalks, streets, and other public spaces. Some were brightly colored, standing out against the gray pavement. Others almost disappeared into their surroundings. Although they were ordinary and easily overlooked, I found myself drawn to their presence. A glove is an object closely associated with the body. It holds the shape of a hand and suggests warmth, protection, and touch. Once lost, however, it becomes separated from the person and the everyday routines that once gave it purpose. What began as a series of spontaneous photographs gradually developed into an ongoing archive. Through this process, I became increasingly interested in how small material traces can reveal something about the relationship between individuals and the city.
02 / PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE
Photographic Archive
Photography serves as both a method of observation and a form of archival practice in One-Handed Winter. Rather than isolating each glove from its surroundings, I document it within the environment where it was encountered, preserving the relationship between the object and the urban surface around it. As the collection grows, individual photographs become part of a larger visual record. Differences in color, material, location, and time reveal the recurring presence of these overlooked objects across the city. The archive remains open-ended, expanding with each new encounter.
An ongoing archive
A note in the margins
The Things We Leave Behind Sometimes I wonder about the people who once wore these gloves. Where were they going? When did they notice something was missing? Did they ever return to look for it? Each glove suggests a story that I cannot fully know. What remains is a small object, separated from the hand it once protected, resting somewhere in the city. As I continued photographing these encounters, I began to realize that what interested me was not only the objects themselves, but also the act of noticing them. Perhaps an archive does not always begin with something historically significant. Sometimes, it begins with the decision to look more closely at something ordinary.
03 / RESEARCH & REFLECTION
Research & Reflection
Attention as a Form of Care One-Handed Winter approaches everyday observation as a form of care. Influenced by Mierle Laderman Ukeles's artistic practice, particularly her attention to maintenance and overlooked labor, the project considers how artistic attention can make ordinary aspects of urban life visible. The work also engages with questions of archival practice. Hal Foster's concept of the archival impulse offers a way to understand how artists collect and reorganize fragments of information that might otherwise remain dispersed or forgotten. In this context, the photographs of lost gloves form an informal archive of temporary material traces. Arjun Appadurai's writings on the social lives of objects provide another point of reference. Once separated from their original owners, these gloves continue to exist within the city, inviting questions about their previous uses, movements, and meanings. Through these connections, I understand photography not simply as a means of preserving images, but as a practice of paying attention to the relationships between objects, people, and urban space.
Reference Foster, H. (2004). An archival impulse. October, 110, 3–22. Appadurai, A. (Ed.). (1986). The social life of things: Commodities in cultural perspective. Cambridge University Press. Ukeles, M. L. (1969). Manifesto for Maintenance Art 1969! [Artist manifesto].
04 / CURATORIAL DEVELOPMENT
Traces of the Unnoticed
Traces of the Unnoticed: Material Memories in the Contemporary City Traces of the Unnoticed is a curatorial proposal that extends the central questions of One-Handed Winter into a broader consideration of contemporary artistic practices. Bringing together the work of Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Zoe Leonard, Francis Alÿs, and Gabriel Orozco, the proposal examines how artists engage with overlooked objects, everyday activities, material traces, and the changing conditions of urban life. Although these artists work through different mediums and approaches, their practices offer distinct perspectives on what becomes visible or remains unnoticed within the city. Through ideas of maintenance, photographic documentation, everyday action, and the artistic transformation of ordinary objects, the proposal explores how contemporary art can reconsider the relationship between material culture and collective memory. Within this curatorial framework, One-Handed Winter serves as my own contribution to an ongoing conversation about the traces people leave behind and the ways cities remember, preserve, or forget them.
PROJECT INFORMATION
- Artist / Designer
- Zixi Wang
- Year
- 2024- Ongoing
- Materials
- Digital Photography, Photographic Archive, Visual Research
- Dimensions
- Variable dimensions
- Credits / Collaborators
- Photography, Concept, and Research: Zixi Wang