Beverly Buchanan, Tom’s House, 1995

Narrator: The artist Beverly Buchanan made the photographs and the sculpture on view nearby. Curator Rujeko Hockley. 

Rujeko Hockley: The sculpture, Tom's House, is a work in the genre of what Buchanan called her "shacks." That was her word for these pieces. And she made them out of found wood, foam core, other scraps of things, tin. When you get up close to it, you can see that they are the real materials that the homes in the photographs are made out of. The photographs, she also is looking at this almost like a DIY aesthetic by virtue of not having other options. 

The woman who's shown framed in her doorway, you can see that her home is made out of literally tree branches and twigs that have been put together, obviously, but there's very few straight lines that you're seeing. And this is, kind of, I would say, a way of life and a way of making that is born of necessity, but also there's an inherent creativity and resourcefulness to it. And I think Buchanan was really interested in that creativity and resourcefulness that was unique to the communities that she was a part of and that she observed in her travels. So, rather than only thinking about "fancy houses" or monuments to war heroes or all these people that we might read about in history, I think she was very interested in this person who's just sitting in their doorway.