Studio Sean Canty

This is an installation loosely based on two sheds constructed by Canty’s great-grandfather Edgar in Eliot, South Carolina. He called him Bubba. One shed is a home of joy, belonging, and struggle. The other is a juke joint filled with smoke, rhythm, and blues. The beauty laid bare in Bubba’s sheds acknowledges a set of practices entirely foreign and overlooked, steeped in the Black vernacular. In these simple forms, quite extraordinary inventions abound. Values of reuse and care are of the same essence.
Like Bubba’s sheds, complicated and contradictory impulses are everywhere in this installation. The symbolically over-scaled roof is the first act of sheltering. Its tectonics are carefully accounted for and easily demountable for reuse. Its cladding relaxes the precision of the plan and section, occasionally conjoining the wall and roof. Its interior can be filled with sound or the quietness of its surroundings. This is Edgar’s shed.

Technical collaborators
Hanif Kara OBE, Edoardo Tibuzzi (AKTII), Erich Gruber, Erich Bergmeister (LignoAlp)
Team
Sarah Dunham, Jan Kwan, Gabriel Soomar, Justin Jiang, Austin Couch
Soundscape Designer
Darien Carr
With the additional support of
Harvard Graduate School of Design