An Elephant in the Room
This site-specific installation replicates my studio through a process of observational sculpture. Reconstructing the studio is an introspective act: it takes the structure and conditions of my art practice and makes them the subject of inquiry. Within the installation, the geographic context of New Orleans becomes a collaborator.
The stacking of objects expresses a need to reach higher ground. A chair at the top of the pile rises above the lighting grid, an imagined boundary that doubles as a waterline. New Orleans’ position below sea level informs this gesture, alluding to a studio submerged underwater. The space beneath the surface of water can suggest the subconscious; here, the majority of the work exists below that threshold.
A miniature wooden simulacrum of the installation is placed apart from the larger work on a pedestal. The plinth gives it a kind of sacred distance, removing it from the physical space we occupy and allowing it to function as a metaphor or thought object. Within this miniature arrangement, however, something new appears: an excavator bucket.
In some ways, the excavator bucket is the elephant in the room. It introduces the presence of disaster—past and present—and the destruction and displacement that follow. For me, it recalls Hurricane Katrina and the demolition of homes currently taking place in Gaza and Lebanon. Its presence shifts the miniature from a simple representation of the studio toward an image of instability, destruction, and what remains in their aftermath.