A Room of Their Own
Chloe Hawkins
On the list of what a writer needs to produce great works, a room of one’s own is at the top. In Novel: A Living Installation, the newest project put on by the Flux Factory, an artist’s collective in Queens, New York, three separate writers have been provided with what some might consider an artist’s dream: a space for living and working and the time to write. The catch? Their habitats, each built by a different team of artists and architects, occupy the main exhibition space at Flux Factory; this puts the writers themselves, the minutia of their daily lives and their creative processes on display to varying extents over the course of the month of their voluntary confinement.
Each living/working space encourages a unique series of potential interactions between the writers and the public, hinting at the collaborative process between the designers and the writers. "I was building this with someone in mind who liked to be home, who didn’t like to go out too much, which is how Grant’s friends described him," said Ian Montgomery, designer and builder of a multi-level, tree house-like structure for Cleveland-based writer Grant Bailie. Built with wood scavenged from dumpsters across the five boroughs, accessed through a trap door in the floor and partially covered by a living roof sprouting with wheatgrass, clover and rye, the place has the feel of a secret writing laboratory, where writing is an alchemical process. Examining the mysterious collection of objects that Montgomery hopes will provide his writer with some creative inspiration, you begin to believe that 1/3 a bottle of scotch, a dusty Altoids tin, a yellow ceramic hippo and a huge block of beeswax could be fodder for prose. The space embodies a variety of playful interactions between public and private space: Holes and gaps in screens of painted cheesecloth that surround the writer’s desk invite sneaky peeks inside while an open window lined with both interior and exterior benches encourages direct communication and suggests that interaction with the public plays an important role in the writer’s practice.
Opposite Bailie’s habitat is its aesthetic and conceptual opposite: a sleek and simple space designed for writer Laurie Stone by Salazar-Davis architects. Working in close collaboration with Stone, to address her concerns about physical privacy and comfort, the architects created a structure that, in theory, allows her complete control over who sees her and when. A full covering of translucent cellular plastic siding allows light to pass through, but aspiring visitors, enticed by the gradual orange ramp, follow it to find themselves walking under rather than into the space and are quickly shunted out the back unless they notice the hidden door, knock, and Stone decides to let them in.
From a small perch on the roof of Stone’s space, she will be able to see directly into the roofless room of writer Ranbir Sidhu, designed by Tricky Inc, a team of Columbia architecture grad students Mitch McEwen and Kwi-hae Kim. Fascinated by the idea of a writer in a box, they used actual plywood boxes as their building blocks for two compartments, one for working and the other for rest. Wall panels facing the main space slide up and down on a system of ropes and pulleys offering the writer an enormous range of openness to the public.
In combination with the voyeurism of the public display, the walls and ceilings (or lack thereof) of these structures–physical elements that usually serve to separate personal from public space–provide the suggestion rather than the service of privacy. Even in Ms. Stone’s case, between the plastic siding panels, aggressive viewers can find the slenderest of spaces for peeping. This tenuous relationship between inside and outside, personal and public work/art/living space raises some important questions: What is the role of privacy in art making and in making art accessible to artists and to the public? How important is a writer’s position vis a vis their community to their creative process?
Opening night, before the writers were enclosed in their habitats, I stood amidst the inquisitive crowd and performative writers. It was hard to imagine their commitment to writing, even the possibility of writing, to be anything more than part of the gimmick. However, as co-curator Morgan Meiss reminded me, the spectacle is scheduled. Novel: A Living Installation will be open to the public for select viewing hours a few days a week, and on Saturday evenings when the writers will give readings from their works in progress. Somehow, over the course of their confinement, the writers will have to reconcile themselves to occupying the line between public and private space and adjust their working process accordingly, finally emerging from their habitats having completed a novel.
In some way, Novel is a microcosm of the Flux Factory experience as the Factory itself is a space where the practices of personal and communal art making cohabitate and intermingle. Originally founded in Williamsburg as an artist’s living space only, Flux has occupied its current home in a warehouse in Queens and it’s dual identity as an artist’s working/exhibition space and non-profit arts organization, since 1999. Although only a small core of it’s 17 members are directly involved in managing the arts organization component, to all members of the collective, "Art is the most important part," says director Stefany Goldberg. How else would you be able to share your personal space with the public?
When I polled the curators, writers and Flux members about what outcome of this installation would surprise them, the same sentiment was echoed: "If they really produced something good;" "If I came out of this with a good start;" "If I wrote something I really cared about." Granted, these comments were made on opening night when the focus was on the completed habitats and the month of writing ahead was still just an idea. If the Flux Factory itself can be a model of hope for Novel: A Living Installation, then there is the possibility that new things, great things, can be generated from the interactions between artists, the public and living/working space. In Laurie Stone’s words, "Whatever happens, happens." In fact, anything could happen. Perhaps the quality of the writing will depend upon the degree to which the writers will be able to embrace their occupation of the public realm and regard the people surrounding them as boons, rather than obstacles to their creative processes.
