Sculpture Milwaukee
Curtain Wall
2021
 

A curtain wall, in architectural terms, is a non structural facade of a building. This curtain wall is potentially structural yet it holds nothing up. The first version of this piece was built for a public art exhibition at Plug In ICA in Winnipeg Manitoba  in 2017. At the time there was a lot of political rhetoric around building border walls. Now that political attention has shifted to emphasize more relevant issues like public health and civil rights, I see the eyes shifting also. The wall was inspired by Jennifer Krasinsky’s one line Prop Tragedy titled Curtain which goes “But when in doubt, she wrote, blame the window for the view”.  

This proposition made me think about how we choose what we see and how what we see is sometimes chosen for us.  Curtain Wall questions the notion of transparency: seeing, being seen and realizing what is unseen. 

I was hopeful this project would have more that one life adding layers in different contexts, both physically and temporally.  Taking down and rebuilding is a perpetual theme in my studio as I’m constantly questioning terms of value and impermanence.