Items Found By Transportation by Gary L. Moses II, Photographs and writing Maura Jasper, 2012. View or download the PDF. © Maura Jasper 2012

Items Found By Transportation, By Gary L. Moses II; 2012

Items Found By Transportation is a book about value. The value we place on objects and the value we place on unsolicited acts of kindness. This self published chap-book inventories lost and found items recovered by Gary L. Moses II the the Director of Bus Operations for Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana.

The book is a compilation of emails written by Gary in an effort to reunite lost items with their owners, alongside photographs of the unclaimed items. The emails in this book were sent to all students, faculty and staff between November 2010 and November 2011.  Items listed include everything from a Neurocare dietary supplement to a turtle shell.

Each month I looked forward to these emails, each with another list full of water bottles, gloves and collapsible umbrellas peppered with the occasional: “Red rain boots with yellow ducks on them ” or “audio CD with Nicole’s floor music on it”.  Seemingly worthless and mundane items loosely described and inventoried.  Items with more obvious monetary value get the opposite treatment and “must be described by owner to claim”.

I learned that unclaimed items (no matter how insignificant) were kept and eventually auctioned by a sorority that donated the funds to local charities.

The photographs in this book were taken at the Ball State University Student Center "lost and found" in the winter of 2012.

I printed an edition of 25 books. The images of the book below are courtesy of Jacinda Russell. http://jacindarussell.com/home.html


 



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