Miniature Sears Tower and Shipping/Receiving

Cardboard, packing tape, packing peanuts, custom-made boxes, drawings, multiples (computer prints). 2005-2008 (ongoing).

The conceptual development of Shipping/Receiving and the Miniature Sears Tower project was initiated by the dual resonance of "the box" within the modernist architecture of the Sears Tower and the retail structure of the Sears Corporation (mail order and product distribution). Essentially, the cardboard box bears a formal relationship to the tower while also being responsible for shipping the commodities which Sears sells to its consumers. This co-dependence of the banal and the complex reveals that the largest building (or corporate entity) is constructed from a network of natural and human created interactions sustaining its enormity. The cardboard box then functions as an actual example of this interconnectedness as well as a metaphor that extends across numerous valences. The project critiques hierarchical structure and architectural rigidity, and provides imagined alternatives for understanding built environments. Many of the works also take natural forms such as webs, ant hills and rhizomes as metaphors for exploring these ideas further.

Versions of the project have been presented at the Banff Centre, Truck Gallery (Calgary), the Mezzanine Gallery (Calgary), Gallery 40000 (Chicago) and Eastern Edge Gallery (St. John's).