Artwork > 2019 RAIR Philly, Portable Window

Tory Fair conceived her project “Portable Window” in dialogue with a 1968 sculpture of the same name made by artist Mary Miss. Over the course of several weekends at RAIR, Fair developed an 8-foot wooden wheel that functions as a rollable viewfinder, outfitted with a rectangular window — an adaptation of Miss’ original sculpture. Designed to mimic the shape of a digital screen, the piece revives Miss’ concept of “framing site,” inviting viewers to roll the wheel and to find their own snapshot of the surrounding landscape. Though Fair mostly focused on setting of the Superfund site, she also rolled the wheel through the tipping yard, framing the operations of Revolution Recovery and capturing them from many perspectives, rightside up and upside down, through photo and video documentation. (text from RAIR forthcoming catalogue)