The Space Between

Tobacco barn in Keysville, Virginia, bailing twine, paper, metal cans, sound (industrial humming), small yellow lights (visible at night)

600’ x 400’ x 24’

2008

*This was a public art piece constructed in conjunction/ collaboration with a number of students and faculty from Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia. I was invited to construct a site-responsive piece that would respond to the history, landscape, and physical construction of a tobacco barn located in Keysville, Virginia. I chose to use the idea of the multiple tobacco barns in the Virginia landscape as a metaphor for the many marks (both visible and invisible/ new and old) we all have on the landscape of our bodies. I gave each Longwood University student two strips of paper. I asked each student to write a ‘site’ on one piece of paper (example: finger) and a corresponding ‘event’ on the other piece of paper (example: I got a nasty burn boiling water when I was 8 years old trying to make my own oatmeal on the stove). These papers were placed inside the metal cans in an organization reminiscent of an old-fashioned play telephone system (a metal can on each end with a string between). The cans within the tobacco barn contained all of the papers with the ‘body sites’. The cans in the landscape contained all of the papers with the ‘events’ The bailing twine is the “space between” which connects the physical topography of the site and the emotional impression of the event.