There are many ways to be a house | Thea Cohen
Thea arrived at Elsewhere in January 2020 and was immediately intrigued with the repetitions she found within the museum, which were all later amplified by the pandemic. She wanted to investigate the ways in which cycles manifest themselves at Elsewhere, focusing on the perpetual creation, destruction, and recreation of the things that never leave. Her process was rooted in its own cycle of recontextualizing objects and materials as a way to experiment with new ways of being. Thea is fascinated with functionality (or the lack there of) regarding the ways in which physical characteristics influence movement and provoke assumptions around how to inhabit space. She also enjoys non-linear storytelling and is especially interested in the distortions that occur within repetitions across materials, scale, and time. Over the course of her year living and working at Elsewhere, Thea created small and large-scale sets, props, puppets, and costumes that she used in the making of her video series. She fabricated everything out of collection materials, sometimes using the museum itself as a backdrop. This video series and the world it was birthed from is both a literal and abstract exploration of the many ways to be house.
