Powers of 10 (Home kit), 2023

Powers of 10 (Home kit), which references the Charles and Ray Eames film, displays the materials most frequently used in home construction in ten concentric rings. Positioned above the floor on a custom moveable dolly, the aggregate materials in this “kit” can be understood as a portal into geological time and our current epoch, the Anthropocene, which is defined by humankind’s impact on the planet.

These materials were recovered during a residency at a demolition and construction recycling center in Philadelphia. Each material was repurposed for this use after extraction from the earth in other forms—asphalt from tar pits that are thousands of years in the making, sawdust from a tree that lived, say 50 years in a forest, glass made from sand produced by the erosion of rock over millions of years and so on—each product a ring in its own concentric capacity.

Flexible steel conduit, glass, carpet padding, cement, armoured cable, fiberglass insulation, sawdust, gypsum, asphalt roofing, and plastic resin pellets; custom dolly, Plexiglas, adhesive

11 x 61 1/2 x 61 1/2 inches; 27.9 x 156.2 x 156.2 cm

Photo credit: Pierre Le Hors