Partially Buried

SYNOPSIS

The focus of my installation was the exploration, reconstruction, and documentation of an abandoned shed containing evidence of occupation by an outdoor adventurer. My absent character was like Henry David Thoreau or Christopher McCandless in that he chose to live in seclusion from society. The seemingly imminent collapse of the structure reflects the mental state of the shed’s former inhabitant after his solitary stay in the wilderness. The shed also referenced Robert Smithson’s piece, “A Partially Buried Woodshed” created in 1970 while Smithson was staying at Kent State University.

As I am interested in Robert Smithson’s formulation of entropy, this work alluded to and subverts Smithson’s engagement with decaying and entropic sites, by further engaging with the museological permutations of the non-site. In reassembling the shed, I wished to defy the entropic process. The shed was constructed so as to appear to be collapsing under the weight of an avalanche of materials collected in the Dawson area. These materials were found items such as core fragments and industrial debris left over from mining activities in the area. My reconstructed shed was held in an improbable stasis that only could be found in a museological model. The defining moment in Smithson’s work was the instant the weight of mounds of earth loaded on the woodshed broke the center beam. In contrast to Smithson’s work, I halted the effects of entropy acting upon the shed. My shed did not buckle under the weight of the mass of materials, rather the inner construction negated the seeming instability of the shed. In the case of the avalanche, it took on an allegorical form, which attested to a sweep of industry that has left a scar on the landscape – to be filled in by nature or the possibility of new technology.

Removed (MFA Show) was accompanied by an exhibition catalogue, Present, Sylvia Grace Borda, Keith Langergraber, Daphne Locke, Misa Nikolic: University of British Columbia MFA catalogue 2001.

PRESS

Removed – Melanie O’Brian, Present, UBC MFA Exhibition, September, 2001