Division of Labor by Montana Torrey

My artwork employs the landscape as a metaphorical tool to investigate oppositional structures through temporary outdoor installations and interventions. My work explores memory, longing, desire, and absence in contrast to or in connection with my immediate environment to form a phenomenological understanding of place.
Division of Labor references the historic rock fences or stonewalls that created early divisions of public and private land in the Bluegrass Region of Kentucky. Many of the historic walls within the Bluegrass Region were built by Irish stonemasons and slave labor and serve not only as ways of literally manipulating the physical landscape through division, but also as an artifact of often anonymous labor. My installation calls attention to the traces of this labor by replacing the original permanent, dense material (rock) with a sewn structure made from fragile material (silk organza). Division of Labor is a ghostly barrier, a shell-like replica of an historic boundary fence of the region. The seemingly antithetical use of delicate needlecraft to create this fragile barrier directly engages with the uncredited artistry of stonemasonry rendered by forced or exploited labor.
By using the fence as a metaphor for interiority and exteriority, my piece Division of Labor also explores the psychological implications of physical borders or barriers. Installed on the outer edge of campus, Division of Labor speaks to the contained idea of utopia by exploring the dualities of public/private space.