'The House Our Families Built' by Caledonia Curry aka Swoon, 2021
Image by Hashimoto Contemporary
As a child my Mom would read stories to my siblings and I
every night before bed and one of my favourites was a book called Christina Katerina
and the Box. It was about a little girl who asked if she could have the
cardboard box from the delivery of her mother’s refrigerator. With it she created
a castle, a boat, a race car and made up imaginative stories along the way. So,
when I saw Caledonia Curry aka Swoon’s The house our Families Built, I
felt really drawn to it and drawn to her artistic style in a strangely familiar
way. It took a little while to realize why, but once that memory of Christina
Katarina and the Box came back to me, I suddenly made the connection.
Memories are a funny thing; they make up so much of who we are without having
to live at the forefront of our minds; they exist somewhere in the background
until some spark brings them back to life and you recognise their magnitude. The
House our families built is like a box full of America’s memories, each one
as different as Christina Katarina’s imaginations. Inspired by PBS’s ‘American
Portrait’ initiative, Swoon created a travelling art installation/sculpture out
of a box truck, in which live performances were held in various locations
around the New York Boroughs. The truck opens up like a doll house; stairs
extend out, the roof pops up, and fences and second hand furniture surround the
perimeter. Inside sits a sofa and kitchen area, clothing hangs, picture frames
sit on shelves, and detailed wallpaper lines both the inside and out of the
truck. The wallpaper and detailed architectural embellishments were all created
by Swoon herself, taking inspiration from both timber frame Cracker homes of
early settlers and Victorian houses of the wealthy. She invites both living and artistic
depictions of people into this home. Her life-sized sketches are often done on
plain white or light brown carboard coloured paper using a single colour to
make her sketching’s, usually in black or blue. They have an ease to them, a
connection to the hand of the maker, I can visualise her creating these
sketches, no pretence or formula, just a natural capturing of everyday life. The
pairing with live performances is the perfect marriage for this installation,
the visual combined with the storytelling creates a unity and a connection. The
stories taken from the ‘American Portrait’ initiative came from people from all
across the country; sharing stories of familial and cultural traditions such as
recipes, things they would like to let go of, their commonalities to one
another, and their hopes and plans for the future. The ethos was “Our country
is home to millions of people. Each one of us is unique, and we’re all part of
the American story” This past year has been one of turmoil but also one of
recognition, a chance to see where changes need to be made as well as where connections can be made. Swoon believes
that public art is community building, and she hopes that her art will fill a
need and that through storytelling people can heal both personally and culturally.
Just like the closeness I felt to my Mom when she read Christina Katarina
and the Box to me as a child, Swoon’s art is a removal of otherness and a reconnection
to humanity.
Goodman, Wendy (2021) A Box Truck That Carries Our Dreams
of Home See Swoon’s fantastical memory box on wheels, “The House Our Families
Built.” [online] Available at: https://www.curbed.com/article/swoon-house-our-families-built.html
[Accessed: 1st April 2021]
PBS (2021) Swoon: The House Our Families Built, Exploring
the beauty and the burden of our personal legacies [online] Available at: https://www.pbs.org/american-portrait/public-art/the-house-our-families-built#:~:text=As%20a%20roving%2C%20mobile%20sculpture,About%20the%20Performances.
[Accessed: 20th March 2021]
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