Build Carleton I elaborates on the specificity of place in our experience of Carleton’s built environment. Different angles of approach into the show space provide different views of a campus building that has been projected and superimposed onto these vessels. Functional vessels form the canvas for this decoration, speaking to the fundamentally functional nature of the relationship we have to the campus. Yet at the same time, there is time-specificity too in experiencing Carleton – as well as this piece – certain buildings will cease to exist at a certain point after the show’s opening and will be irretrievably lost, just as these structures no longer stand on campus and are lost to subsequent generations.

Build Carleton II included a participatory component in its creation, and “builds” Carleton in a less physical, but more personal sense. Students were invited to select and alter porcelain vessels that were later assembled into a composite structure that represents Carleton’s campus. Two weeks from the show’s opening, every vessel will be returned to the participants in exchange for an object relevant to their Carleton experience. These objects will be used to re-create the composite structure, and carry with them memories of having once been a part of a social landscape. The functional vessels that are now dispersed amongst the students similarly embody the same idea of having been a part of the same physical and social landscape tied to Carleton’s built environment by their blue and white surface decoration.