10.25.14     A guided tour of local piles of dirt at construction sites

A brief foreign landscape emerges while another planned space is being erected. Constructions sites, and in particular, the piles of dirt that appear overnight and often move back and forth across the site, represent an ephemeral state of creation sandwiched between two other more permanent phases of intended developed space. The liminal landscape is rarely considered, as it is short-lived and created as a means to an end - an end that erases any sign of its existence. It is in this in-between that the earthen monuments emerge, disrupting our topographic expectations. Despite fences and glossy signage promising the commerce to come, the dirt piles, however temporary, redefine the existing landscape in a way that invites curiosity and exploration. Their shape and placement ever changing, the dirt pile mimics a slow-moving mammoth beast, both comforting in familiarity and intimidating in colossal size. Often restricted by a brightly colored mesh fence, these constructed monuments loom as precious relics or exotic creatures not to be touched, but only admired as monuments from afar due to their obvious exclusivity. It is their preciousness and impeded access that breeds a need to investigate, document and traverse their fluctuating surface and placement.