in collaboration with Brant. 2009

White gaffer tape

This site-specific installation was done at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine. The architect of the site, Edward Larabee Barnes, based the footprint of the artists' cabins on that of Henry David Thoreau's at Walden Pond. Referring to the text for the measurements of that long destroyed cabin, we mapped out its volume in white tape within our own.

We were curious to see how the two spaces interacted and how Barnes had taken the dimensions of the Walden space into consideration. I am particularly fascinated with Thoreau's legacy and with how his gesture to remove himself to the woods and simplify his life has entered the cultural consciousness and influences the way we approach living in nature.

Thoreau didn't set out to write at Walden, and drafted his reflections on the experience 10 years after being there. The furniture we left in the cabin corresponds to the items he had and there was notably no table.