Edgar Endress, The story of institutions

Edgar Endress on stamp collecting, rubber stamps, vernacular art, linguistics --all subjects explored while working alongside the stamp artists of downtown Port-au-Prince for his project The Story of Institutions at the 2015 Ghetto Biennale.

Port-au-Prince is teeming with rubber stamp artists who sit in front of small tables, strategically located in the mix of the civic quarters. They handcraft stamps for customers using a razor blade with precision and craftsmanship. On the table is also a notebook where the stamp is tested for customer approval. The notebook then becomes an archive of years of stamp production. Endress's project deconstructed the meaning of the rubber stamp as a symbol of social legitimacy and as political metaphor, by archiving existing works of the stamp makers in the neighborhood.

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