Garage Interiors: The Topography of Hidden Space (1983)

The garage is, in many respects, the perfect exemplar of an inner landscape- a self-contained terrain, both secular and shrine-like, necessary yet neglected. And importantly, this landscape evolves through its contours and artifacts a membrane of memory. It is a memory which reminds us of the reciprocity of human environments in relation to natural elements. Conceived as a sequel to Sites of Southern Wisconsin (1981), this project also focuses on the built environment, this time in depicting the interior landscape of one specific type of structure: the humble, wood-framed one-car garage. The series was first shown as a site-specific neighborhood installation in the garage behind my house/studio. In the intervening years I've used the space for two further projects; most recently-- When Things Dream (from a Tristan Tzara prose-poem of the same name), in 2006, a text-based project. It, along with aspects of the previous two installations, was translated to the web in the following year as Garageography, a virtual tour- at http://www.afsnitp.dk/galleri/garageography/ (shown in a separate project gallery on these pages; sadly, the web project is no longer available due to the demise of Adobe Flash).