Building for a Stranger
This installation is the final dialog between a stranger and I which took place over the course of several months. The Dialog began with my desire to mark my paths through the city of Chicago, as cities are made not to mark the passages of individuals. With this intention I decided to build cairns out of objects and trash I collected to mark my path.
In marking my paths I found many wild and strange places, one of my favorite was this stretch of shore line south of the Natural History Museum, Aquarium, and Planetarium. This stretch of shore line showed its construction, bent and twisted rebar, concrete, stone slabs, and rotting wood, absolutely beautiful in its dystopian existence. Naturally I built several cairns and moved on to explore other areas, I did not know that this would be the beginning of a dialog.
In marking my paths I decided that I needed to maintain my cairns or erect new ones if they had been destroyed or knocked over. While checking the cairns i had build near the shore I found that cairns that I had built had been turned into a fire pit. I found more materials to build cairns with and proceeded to build more cairns. When I can back teh next week I found that they cairns I had erected had been torn down and turned into a new fire pit.
The same occurrence continued to happen every time I built a new marker. While talking to a friend about this strange dialog that I had entered with this fire pit stranger, they suggested that I try and change the relationship. During this conversation I started to wonder what would happen if I built this person a shelter and fire pit. After a week of debating with myself about what to do I finally decided to build a wind barrier and fire pit. This sadly was end of this dialog through shared stones that this stranger and i were to have. The 7 images below document the building of the barrier and the finality of our interaction.
