Blue Collapsible Sculpture

This temporary sculpture is drawn from my time in Maine and my experience of the back roads and front lawns that define its domestic landscape. Blue poly tarps that are commonly used across the state to cover and protect materials and possessions from the weather are also employed around the country and in many parts of the world, revealing this simple and inexpensive commodity as a universal, versatile, and practical answer to a wide range of situations. The same standardized sheets of plastic that extend protection and ownership beyond the enclosure of the home also extend the territory of humanity and inhabitability when configured as a provisional humanitarian aid in the exigency of natural or manmade disaster.

This piece explores the blue tarp’s universal connotation of temporality and protection to extend interior, architectural space into the exterior landscape, while its removal from banal yard service or terrifying disaster footage attempts to focus attention on its function and dysfunction in the contemporary culture of impermanence and instability. Summer 2006

Polytarp, conduit and fastener, 2′ W x 3′ L Base x 9′ H