Leigh Davis "The Burrow (H.H.)"

Open Source Gallery

poster for Leigh Davis "The Burrow (H.H.)"

This event has ended.

“Now the truth of the matter – and one has no eye for that in times of great peril, and only by a great effort even in times when danger is threatening – is that in reality the burrow does provide a considerable degree of security, but by no means enough, for is one ever free from the anxieties inside it?” – Franz Kafka, The Burrow

Open Source Gallery presents The Burrow (H.H.), a new project from Brooklyn-based artist Leigh Davis. Working from photographs she took of an inhabited self-storage unit in New Mexico and using materials found in the surrounding neighborhood, Davis’s installation repurposes the gallery as a transitional living space, in which everyday artifacts of human existence take on different meaning when encountered in a place not designed for habitation. In constructing The Burrow (H.H.) specifically for the gallery, Davis engages her ongoing interest in creating projects in relation to the opportunities and constraints presented by the sites in which they are located.

The title of the project is taken from The Burrow, a Kafka story told from the perspective of a compulsive character who describes with pride the concealed burrow he has built to protect himself. As the character elaborates on the details, however, the description grows more paranoid and fantastical, and ultimately the narrator becomes trapped, possessed by his own creation. Davis’s project similarly creates a state of curiosity and uneasiness, in which viewers are invited–through the objects presented–to reconstruct for themselves the life lived by the person who is not there. But by restricting physical access to the space, the project relegates viewers to be voyeurs, from the outside, prompting them to consider their own relationship to the imagined life inside.

Media

Schedule

from January 14, 2012 to February 08, 2012

Opening Reception on 2012-01-14 from 19:00 to 21:00

Artist(s)

Leigh Davis

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