Ties That Bind
We will create a temporary sculptural installation that will transform the exterior of two houses for the Mad Homes Project. We will bind the two houses together using 12,000 feet of custom-made red polypropylene ratchet straps. These will be held in place by their own inherent tension and wrap around and though all aspects of the houses. The straps will exact force on the homes creating physical and implied tension between the two. Hypothetically, continually ratcheting up each strap could create enough tension to pull the homes off their foundations collapsing the two atop one another. This strain will activate both the houses and the space between the two.
This project speaks to the ideas of home, neighbors and community. We generally don’t get to pick whom we have for neighbors in the same way we don’t get to pick our families yet we are bound to these people. We are reminded that there is much more that ties us together than proximity. The act of binding has both positive and negative connotations. A wound needs to be bound in order to heal; a machine breaks due to binding parts. A bond can intimate the love between parents and their children or a difficult situation. It is cohesion and unity at the same time it is tight and restrictive. The project is a physical manifestation of this dualism.
Panoramic Photos by © Bradford Bohonus