Portland Building Installation

Tally: The Things We Build For Ourselves
Nathan Sandberg, 2013
Kilncast Glass, Concrete, Steel
106” x 160”

Build, suggests houses, buildings, furniture and other physical objects. I have always been impressed with the methodology of building, both the process and more importantly the physical results. In many of my sculptural works I have worked quite literally with these formal aspects of our built environment. While documenting these supposedly accidental arrangements of texture, form and color that surround us I have become increasingly aware of the intangible aspects of urban life.

While we build and gather mass physically, remarkably we are also by default designing intangible enclosures that quietly, dramatically define our trajectory through life.

Within the installation, grade stakes are grouped to resemble jailers keys and serve as physical records to track, and provide significance to, everyday tasks. Regularly used to demarcate the rise and fall of elevation on construction sites, the stakes are evidence of an original plan that was laid as groundwork and their groupings draw attention to the idea that without much effort on our part we can become locked into a routine that is a series of mundane tasks linked together by eight-hour bursts of work.

In summary, Tally records the number or times we find ourselves performing mundane tasks such as reaching for our keys, taking exactly the same path to and from our jobs, checking the mailbox, going to the bank and sweeping the floor. To both curse and pay homage to the amount of time we spend on these tasks I have attempted to document such repeated activity in permanent and dramatic fashion.

Portland Buliding Installation Space