FabLab: InterGen Bridging Generations Through Archives & Art

Eye Zen Presents proudly introduces
Fab Lab: InterGen

An innovative expansion of our Fab Lab project- bringing together artists and archivists across generations to preserve, interpret, and celebrate LGBTQ+ artists and their archives.

First Project: Adam Paulson Archive Initiative

URGENT UPDATE: Adam Paulson has been evicted from his studio of 50 years.

First Priority: The Adam Paulson Archive Project
Our immediate goal centers on completing the processing of Adam Paulson's extensive archive, preparing it for placement in an academic institution while building his legacy website. A small group of emerging archivists and artists will learn preservation techniques through hands-on work with this collection, gaining skills they can apply to future projects while making real progress on this urgent preservation need.

Why This Work Matters Now
Adam’s entire life's work—though safely boxed thanks to our prescient preservation efforts—now faces displacement and potential loss. This emergency compounds the existing threats to marginalized voices. When ultra-conservative movements globally seek to undo decades of social justice progress, saving Adam's revolutionary art from both political erasure AND physical displacement becomes doubly urgent.

Fab Lab InterGen teaches community members vital skills to safeguard our cultural heritage while urgently processing Adam's now-homeless collection. The eviction means we're not just preserving history—we're conducting an emergency rescue of 50+ years of revolutionary art.

How you can help?

About Adam Paulson
For the past year, Eye Zen Archival Services has been working with Adam Paulson (formerly Paul Cotton/Adam II), an 85-year-old conceptual artist whose six-decade career began at the birth of the movement. When curator Harald Szeemann included him in "When Attitudes Become Form" (1969) and Documenta V (1972) featured his work, Adam was already exploring what he called "the body as language"—using presence itself as his medium.

A Revolutionary Vision of Presence
Influenced by Norman O. Brown's writings on liberation and consciousness, Adam saw art as a spiritual practice. His "Random House Converter/Trance-Former" created mirror-inspired passages that dissolved the boundaries between viewer and viewed. His performances weren't provocations but invitations—to experience what he called "the eternal present," to recognize that "we are invited to reflect upon ourselves as mirror images of one another." Like contemporaries Paul McCarthy, Chris Burden, and Bonnie Sherk, Adam understood the body as a site of transformation. But where others used endurance or confrontation, Adam offered presence—a poetic insistence that liberation comes through being fully here, now, in the body.

Why This Archive Matters 
While Eye Zen Presents focuses on LGBTQ+ histories, Adam's work transcends categories—his revolutionary use of the body to challenge repression and expand consciousness has influenced how we all understand freedom, presence, and human possibility. Preserving his archive means saving not just art history, but a blueprint for liberation that speaks to anyone seeking to live more fully.

WHAT’S FABLAB: INTERGEN?

Our Vision

Fab Lab InterGen teaches essential preservation skills to community members while actively processing the archives of elder artists. Through hands-on training, participants—especially those interested in supporting elders—learn archival methods while doing the vital work of preparing collections for permanent institutional homes AND creating digital archives that ensure the work remains accessible to inspire future generations.

As funding allows, we'll expand to include artistic mentorships uniting younger and elder artists to collaborate on new works inspired by these connections.

How FabLab: InterGen works

We bring together elder artists who need help organizing and preparing their archives with people interested in learning the skills of archiving. Interns can be students of art history, MLIS, Fine Art or community members.

• Learn by Doing: Community members gain archival skills through hands-on processing of real collections

• Immediate Impact: Every training session advances the preservation of an elder artist's life work

• Scalable Approach: Program grows with funding—from focused archival processing to full artistic collaborations

• Community Building: Group work sessions make archive processing efficient while fostering intergenerational connections

• Professional Guidance: Seth Eisen provides training and mentorship throughout the process

Building on Decades of Experience
Fab Lab InterGen draws on our deep foundation of community work spanning multiple decades. We've been creating theatrical productions and creative works from historical records and archival materials for over 30 years. Our FabLab Program has been running since 2014 and became a permanent fixture in 2019. We've conducted oral histories since 2012 and Artistic Director Seth Eisen has been preserving elder artists' archives since 2006. This extensive experience in both protecting queer legacies and transforming them into living art uniquely positions us to facilitate these vital intergenerational connections.

Program Benefits

• Elder artists receive professional archival support and reach new audiences

• Younger artists gain direct access to living history and develop new creative works

• The community discovers hidden treasures of LGBTQ+ art and cultural heritage

• All participants develop valuable archival and storytelling skills

Program Phases Based on Community Support

• $10,000-12,000: Complete Adam Paulson's archive with mentorship for archival trainees

• $12,000-15,000: Finalize Adam's project including website and digital archive

• $15,000-20,000: Add a second elder artist's archive AND introduce artistic mentorship pairings

• $25,000-35,000: Multiple archives with expanded artistic collaborations

• $50,000: Full program including 3+ archives, community workshops, and 10+ trained archivists

Support This Work
Your contribution directly funds both education and preservation—every dollar teaches critical skills while saving irreplaceable cultural treasures. This work embodies Eye Zen's mission of unearthing and elevating LGBTQ+ history while protecting and promoting the legacies of our elders and ancestors, ensuring their stories continue to inspire future generations.