barr house. rosendale, new york
2012site specific installation
handmade paper, house (1886), onsite construction materials
Within Constructions was a temporaneous site-specific installation at Women's Studio Workshop's historic Barr House, built in 1886. During renovation demolition, I meticulously wrapped the original interior wall structure in the hearth of the home with handmade highly-beaten abaca paper. As the unique paper shrank dry around the wall frames, it tightly enclosed a two-story room. These taught, yet transparent surfaces transformed the empty hearth into a large-scale resonator. This two story resonator magnified and echoed sounds of movement within the home.
Within Constructions examines the Taoist philosophy: "It is the door and window that make a room useful". Through highly repetitive labored process, I enveloped the installation site with an attentive care and intentionality that sharply contrasted the speedy demolition of the construction zone it inhabited. Both physically and conceptually, Within Constructions amplified the emptiness of the space it contains.
These interior walls have since been removed. Although the space this installation occupied still exists, it no longer has perimeters of any kind.
