hG, Spare Parts is a 3-year cycle of projects commissioned and produced by Director Eloisa Haudenschild and Commissioning Editor Steve Fagin from 2006 – 2009 that encouraged the juxtaposition of the crucial, the trivial, and the arcane. Projects included Decolonizing Architecture, A Crime Has Many Stories, and The Last Book.

This exquisite corpse project is based on Argentine writer Ricardo Piglia’s short story, La Loca y el Relato del Crimen (1975). The November 29, 2008 multidisciplinary, one-day traverse of the city of Buenos Aires was plotted with co-conspirators Judi Werthein, Sonia Becce, Alejandro Ruiz, Rosalba Mirabella, Roberto Jacoby, Fernanda Laguna, Washington Cucurto and Eloisa Cartonera.

Located in the hills of La Jolla, a seaside resort community near San Diego, California, the residence of Chris and Eloisa Haudenschild is home to a major U.S. collection of contemporary Chinese video art and photography. The Haudenschilds began collecting contemporary Chinese video and photography in the late 1990s, when these mediums were beginning to become as widely used and important as they are today, and just before the beginning of the market’s current boom.

On October 15, 2009 Washington Cucurto & Maria Gomez of Argentine collective Eloisa Cartonera were in conversation about the project A Crime Has Many Stories. Washington read an excerpt from the hG commissioned text El Hijo.

From October 14 – 16, 2009 Washington Cucurto & Maria Gomez of Eloisa Cartonera were Artists-In-Residence. Cucurto was commissioned to write his short story, El Hijo, for the hG, Spare Parts project A Crime Has Many Stories.

The haudenschildGarage, Spare Parts produced an homage to “the book” in the age of the conquest of the Kindle. Steve Fagin resuscitated the magnificence of the illuminated manuscript as the world turned toward darkness. To this end a one of a kind book was constructed including text, drawings, moving images and sounds. The Last Book was performed at the Schindler House in 2009.