Architecture as Baggage on the Body

2010
Gabrielle Herbst & Allie Tsypin
Gabrielle_Herbst_and_Allie_Tsypin,"Architecture_As_Baggage_On_The_Body"

Gabrielle_Herbst_and_Allie_Tsypin,"Architecture_As_Baggage_On_The_Body". Exhibit at Postcards from Gowanus, Cabinet Gallery. Photo: Penny Duff

Herbst writes: "Through collaborative sessions I capture intimate body sounds moving through space—including participants’ breath, heartbeats, vocal expressions, footsteps, scratches, and gurgling as they traverse through the Gowanus. At a particular space that induces attachment, vulnerability, or connection, each participant sings, hearing one’s own voice resonate within the chosen area. When recorded, each event is an archive of attachment to the given space.

Built by Allie Tsypin, a costume inspired by the bridges and boats of the Gowanus Canal explores relationships between water, architecture, and the female body while materializing my own attachment to particular spaces in the area. Space is carried like a weight on the body, like baggage or an extension of a limb. But what mark does a body make in a given space? You remember space like an appendage on your skin but does space remember you?"