Mills Pond House, St. James, New York • 16 August–21 September 2003
POTATO HOUSE transformed the historic Mills Pond House into a temporary museum, classroom, archive, library, laboratory, and community gathering place dedicated entirely to the cultural life of the potato.
Created by artist Jeffrey Allen Price, the exhibition occupied multiple rooms throughout the house and combined original artworks, historical materials, educational displays, performances, collections, and participatory events. Visitors moved through an environment where the potato could be encountered as an agricultural crop, a scientific subject, a cultural symbol, a source of humor, an artistic medium, and a catalyst for community interaction.
Drawing upon years of research, collecting, and artistic experimentation, Price filled the house with potato-related objects, books, artifacts, photographs, educational installations, and original artworks. Chalkboard walls featured potato timelines, nutritional diagrams, scientific information, and potato vocabulary from around the world. A growing library of potato books was displayed alongside historical materials documenting the potato’s influence on agriculture, technology, food culture, and popular media.
Several original artworks were included throughout the exhibition, among them sculptural, photographic, and mixed-media works developed during Price’s graduate studies and earlier Think Potato projects. Many of these pieces incorporated actual potatoes that had participated in previous festivals and events, blurring the line between artifact, artwork, document, and relic. The exhibition also featured selections from Price’s expanding potato collection, bringing together educational material, vernacular objects, popular culture, and contemporary art within a single environment.
Unlike a traditional gallery exhibition, POTATO HOUSE was designed as a living space for participation and exchange. Throughout the exhibition’s run, visitors attended lectures, readings, games, performances, comedy events, and educational programs. The project culminated in THINK POTATO IV, a community potato festival featuring outdoor activities, music, performances, and public participation. The festival also marked an important international connection when Dutch potato-art musicians Michiel Brink and Gerard Immerzeel traveled from the Netherlands to participate with their band, de Aardappeleters (The Potato Eaters), establishing a friendship and creative partnership that would continue for decades.
At its core, POTATO HOUSE explored how an ordinary object can become extraordinary when viewed through the lenses of history, culture, science, memory, and imagination. By transforming an entire house into a potato-centered environment, the exhibition invited visitors to reconsider a familiar object and discover unexpected connections between everyday life and the wider world.
Looking back, POTATO HOUSE can be understood as one of the earliest physical prototypes for the Think Potato Institute itself. Long before TPI existed as a formal organization, Jeffrey Allen Price transformed an entire historic house into a temporary potato museum, library, classroom, archive, performance venue, and community gathering space. Many of the ideas that would later emerge as the Think Potato Institute—research, education, collecting, community engagement, international collaboration, and the study of potato culture across disciplines—were already present within the walls of POTATO HOUSE.
Exhibition Coverage:
2003 — Art: A Grand Passion for a Simple Potato — The New York Times [Article] [PDF]
2003 — A Spud Lover’s Exhibit: That’s No Small Potatoes— Newsday [PDF]
2003 — Jeffrey Allen Price’s “Potato House” Opens at the Mills Pond House — Times Beacon Record Newspapers, Long Island, New York [PDF]
2003 — Eyes On Potatoes: Exhibit Celebrates Agriculture, History — The Smithtown News, Smithtown, New York [PDF]
Related Exhibitions:
→ The Potato Revolution Café (2011)
→ Unpacking My Potato Collection (2012)
Related Timeline Entry:
→ The Potato Revolution Café (2011)
→ Unpacking My Potato Collection (2012)