Cabin
Installation · Architecture · Video · Object
Opening a nondescript door in a Montreal high-rise, visitors step into a traditional Newfoundland saltbox hearth. The smell of wood and kettle steam meet a sense of warmth and hospitality, with an undertow of loss. The hearth is the saltbox’s heart and its central source of heat: a room that builds up and breaks apart through the day for cooking, crafts, and woodworking. Through a window they see Pinchard’s Island itself, a live feed from Cloudberry. The island feels suddenly near and still impossibly far. That tension is the work’s center.
The interior was built with my father using materials sourced in Newfoundland and furnished as a working hearth. Cabin is my studio where people are welcomed for tea, so the installation stays a place people inhabit, not only a stage set to view.
