Reece Terris - Ought Apartment

Reece Terris - Ought Apartment

Reece Terris: Ought Apartment and Its

Social, Economic, and Political Implications

Reece Terris had lofty and some may say presumptuous intentions when designing and fabricating his six-story sculpture, Ought Apartment. After much research, review, and thought, this writer genuinely feels that Reece has met and even exceeded his goals. Terris has given us six levels of commentary on consumerism, materialism and greed, overconsumption and wastefulness, interior design and home renovation over the past six decades, and the progress of social values throughout the years, with his insightful, intriguing, beautiful, and detailed Ought Apartment.

This author feels that Terris' employment as a contractor, and the fact that he used recycled, discarded materials from his job sites for this sculpture, affords him an honesty and credibility that another artist would not possess. Terris sees on a day-to-day basis the way that people throw away materials and products with no concern for the consequences of such wastefulness. As a contractor, he sees firsthand how people are ready to renovate on a whim along with fluctuating trends, for the sole reason that they need newness and change to be happy.

Robin Lawrence tells us how Terris grew increasingly frustrated as he tore out completely functional floors, walls, windows, doors, cabinets, appliances and lighting fixtures, only to throw them away and replace them with brand-new structures whose only marked difference from the old ones was that they had just been purchased. (2009) This frustration is what led Terris to contemplate the consumerism and overconsumption of post-World War II society and drew him to create Ought Apartment.

He used only "reclaimed, recycled and used materials for the installation. Cabinetry, tile work, bathroom fixtures, linoleum floors, wallpaper, appliances, lamps, furniture and a myriad of other domestic artifacts were carefully removed from residences slated for demolition or renovation... The artist salvages these rapidly vanishing domestic objects to emphasize their cultural value, as well as the ongoing cycles of human consumption." (Canadian Architect, April 27, 2009) His use of recycled and used materials makes his statement highly effective in an original and profound way.

Terris speaks to this author specifically about conformity. Each of the six stories of his Ought Apartment were exact duplications of the way homes looked in the represented decade. There were great differences in the architecture, style, and decor in the six spanned decades, but the fact remains that every generation strove to copy an ideal image. Prior to viewing this artwork, this author did not realize the extent of conformity in our society. Every one of the floors in Terris' sculpture could have been thrust back into the decade that it is meant to represent and fit right into any home in the nation at that time.

Design and interior decoration has a social element that this author never considered before viewing Ought Apartment. Whether it is considered conformity or social congruence, the fact is that people tend to emulate what is fashionable within a society. Neighbors will copy each other, with minor variations to portray individuality. This knowledge has led this author to ponder the nature of the design trend and the social aspects of architecture, design, and interior decoration.

Terris also used art to comment on social elements with his sculpture, Bridge. He built a 40-foot bridge that spanned his backyard and connected his house to his neighbor's house. A bridge is by its very nature a social structure. It joins two separate entities, it brings two opposing sides together, it "eases communication and encourages co-operation...it allows movement in either direction." (the Social Bridge, 2006) in building this personal bridge, Terris made a statement that we all need ties to each other to survive.