AM: Chai came out of this finite container that was the site. Storefront offers a similar but more unique condition, in that it’s this iconic architectural moment in the city. Part of the idea is that when you fill Storefront, the outside of the solid becomes a void model of the space. There’s this idea of creating a sculpture from this solid block of marble. Except that Dig is less about form making and more about space making. Instead of forming the outside of a block, we’re going inside.
DA: A subtractive sculpture.
PM: Then were you shopping around for a site like Storefront within which to work?
DA: I had been thinking since the Chai project about doing this. Storefront’s a similar volume. It’s also manageable within a reasonable amount of time.
AM: It’s such an amazing site, too. One, because of its architecture, but also because of its location, in that it makes for such a performance venue: there’s so much traffic and there’s also this permeability to the street that we’re looking to explore and exploit.
PM: Can you talk a bit about how your work plays with our sense of time and static perception of structure?
DA: A prevalent theme in my work, as a goal, is to cause materials to perform in ways that they do not normally (for example, causing walls to ripple or become like fabric).