Aaron Stephan. Cement Houses and How to Build Them

Aaron Stephan. Cement Houses and How to Build Them
September 9 - October 7

Portland-based sculptor Aaron Stephan’s Cement Houses and How to Build Them dialogues with ideas surrounding the American Dream of home ownership in the twentieth century, the collapse of the U.S. housing market at the beginning of the twenty-first century, and recent development booms across cities like Miami. With a one-man, concrete block-making device sold by Sears in the early 1900s—and used to produce building material for constructing one’s own home—the artist will produce hundreds of blocks and build the façade of a home in Locust Projects’ main space. Using the same blueprints packaged with the concrete block machine, Stephan’s construction process will explore the concrete block and the home as potent symbols of American idealism, and the shifting economic landscapes of the nation’s recent history.