Counting (Almshouse)
The place and its function (past or present) are always a key component to the concept of my work. The history of this place is paramount to the piece.
I am trying to get a sense of how it could possibly have felt to live in a house for the poor. Surely there were moments of joy, laughter, and love, but the existence was certainly complicated. It must have been impossible not to contemplate the fact of where they lived, what led them to the need to live here, and the difficult, if not impossible, task of getting back on their feet in order to leave.
The installation is the imagined result of a person working on something day after day to while away the time, to mark time, or to give purpose to a little thing in life.
A knot marks each day he or she has lived in the almshouse. The act of finding the material and tying it to the rest could seemingly make this person feel like they have something to do that is not a task of everyday drudgery. In a place of no possessions, what would it feel like to have something that is just their own? Perhaps it is a motivation to leave, to keep their head about them, or remember life before the house. Then over the years, it just became a compulsion, something that must be done each day.
The “rope” that is created alludes to the idea of tying sheets together to escape a place out a window, but here the climb down is relatively endless and to where would one escape?
The knots are not only an act that became an obsession, but a small release of those complicated feelings: a tiny, tight pull each day.