In 2000, he collaborated with the Pioneers Museum in the desert community of Imperial Valley, California, to reproduce souvenir copies and large models of its local mountain, Mount Signal, and the unique "Sand Spike" sand concretions found at its base. In 2003, he created 120 topographical models of the states of Missouri and Kansas, which he donated and delivered himself to 120 small historical society museums in both states. In 2005, McCollum designed The Shapes Project, a combinatorial system to produce "a completely unique shape for every person on the planet, without repeating." The system involves organizing a basic vocabulary of 300 "parts" which can be combined in over 30 billion different ways, created as "vector files" in a computer drawing program. McCollum has used the system in collaborations with a community library, schoolchildren, home craftworkers, writers, architects and other artists, as the Shapes are created to be used for many different kinds of projects, and so far have been produced in the form of both prints and sculpture, in Plexiglas, Corian, plywood, hardwoods, metals, rubber and fabric, in a variety of sizes. In 2010, he published The Book of Shapes, in collaboration with mfc-michèle didier. This book makes the Shapes Project complete. The first volume contains the 300 shapes "parts" and the second includes the guides and instructions for creating all possible combinations with these components. The same year, he organized the Shapes for Hamilton project, in which a unique signed and dated Shapes print was made for each of the 6,000+ residents of the township of Hamilton, New York. He has been a recipient of an NEA Special Project Grant and an Individual Support Grant from the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation. Collaborations and writings McCollum has occasionally collaborated with other artists in producing projects, including Louise Lawler (1983, 1984, 1988, 1996), Andrea Fraser (1991), Laurie Simmons (1984), Matt Mullican (2004), Andrea Zittel (2007), Allen Ruppersberg (2008), Pablo Helguera (2014) and Cynthia Daignault (2016). He has also written texts and interviewed fellow artists for books and catalogs, including Matt Mullican (1979 and 2006) Allen Ruppersberg (1999), Andrea Zittel (2001), Roxy Paine (2002), and Harrell Fletcher (2005). References Bibliography Nicolas Bourriaud, "McCollum's Aura", New Art International, October 1988. Lynne Cooke, Selma Klein-Essink and Anne Rorimer, Allan McCollum, Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, the Netherlands, 1989; in Dutch and English. Hal Foster, "Subversive Signs", Recoding: Art, Spectacle, Cultural Politics, Seattle Bay