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1-800-I-WAS-SCAMMED.COM

March 15, 2026

Location pinNew York

Blair Simmons with Lindsay Gilbert and Hal Schulman

A woman wearing a light blue shirt holds up a white auction paddle. At the podium, the auctioneer, wearing a grey suit points at her, standing next to the artist Blair Simmons holding up an item for auction.
The artist Blair Simmons, a white woman with brown hair and glasses, holds up a framed print. Next to her, the auctioneer Hal Schulman wears a grey suit and tie. At the table, Lindsay Gilbert in a white t-shirt sits at a table with two laptops.

Have you been scammed? You may be entitled to financial compensation.

A man in a blue blazer with his back to the camera takes a picture of one of the auction items, which are arranged on a plywood bookshelf.
A green and white woven tapestry by e-textile artist Nicole Yi Messier, that shows a woven excerpt reading Rejected, Waitlisted, and Accepted, from a spreadsheet tracking applications to artist residencies.
Two spiral bound copies of a catalogue titled The Scam Collection sit on a black table, next to a row of paper programs with the same cover.

CultureHub hosted a live auction of the Scam Collection of Blair Simmons & Lindsay Gilbert. The Scam Collection celebrates works of recent and contemporary scams and those on the receiving end of said scams, and pays homage to these scam remnants. The unmistakable tension between scammer and scammed, chaos and order, is palpable in every piece. From mundane robo calls and phishing emails to absurd heartbreak stories, this is a collection of celebrated failures. You can see the Scam Collection Catalogue here.

Lindsay Gilbert wears a white button down shirt over a white t-shirt and leans over a table, writing something on a piece of paper.

Credits

1-800-I-WAS-SCAMMED.COM was presented as a part of Experiments in Digital Storytelling.

Creative Team

Lead Artists

Blair Simmons and Lindsay Gilbert

Auctioneer

Hal Schulman

Participating Artists

David Murray, Annika Marthinuss. Suraj Barthy, LiLi Jackson, Louise Harpman, Yuhanxiao Ma, Natalie Friedman, Mingyong Cheng, Yan Chen, Shuang Cai, Heather Craig, Mariia, Najee H.F., Caitlin Servilio, Sarah Hallacher, Andrew Samuel Harrison, Rashida Kamal, Maya Pollack, Tong Wu, Sophia Edwards, Nicole Yi Messier, Melissa Sutherland Moss, Ryan Swedenborg, Julia Fernandez, David Rios, Sam Heckle & Duncan Figurski, Seda Anac, Priyanka Makin

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Blair Simmons
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