Field Collapse

Field Collapse is a site-specific art installation inspired by ‘construction sites’ where work-in-progress can express deep social, economic, and aesthetic messages on their own without any explanation.

“Around the edges of the construction industry, there are still ephemeral, poetic moments of closeness and humanity, accidental collapses of the expanded field. A visit to a building site in the developing world reveals an intimacy that’s lost in finished architecture. A contemporary, machine-inspired, and machine-assisted design is revealed to be obviously handmade, by laborers who are culturally and economically distant from designers, clients, and end users. But for the duration of construction, the site belongs to them, living on-site with their families, farming, cooking, eating, worshiping, entertaining, and decorating. Their decisions about organization and construction method dominate the site’s aesthetics long before the designer’s intent is recognizable”

Field Collapse is a space for contemplating the contradictions of art, architecture, and making. It extends the conversation of Robert Smithson’s Site/Non-Site to incorporate the temporary, human-made artifacts of a distant construction site.