GRAFT: Knoxville

Working with a Puerto Rican-born artist, the design team collaborated to deliver a new sculpture on the grounds of the future GATOP Arboretum and Education Center. This work is part of a series of ongoing representative vernacular architectural and artistic interventions that take the form of immersive installations and publications developed by the artist.

Titled GRAFT, the project references elements known as quiebrasoles, which are made of concrete blocks, and rejas, ornamental grilles or screens, found prominently at the artist’s native country. Its nature is privacy while defining the boundaries of domestic space, allowing for the representation of multiple states of visibility and invisibility.

Within the American context, GRAFT connects physically these existing architecture elements to a particular site while conceptually representing an imaginary transplant or migratory gesture.

GRAFT raises questions about Puerto Rican cultural memory which often masks the African heritage of the island as folklore.

The sculpture consists of a series of waterjet-cut corten steel screens which march up uneven terrain and define three small introspective spaces at the center of an abandoned early 20th-century marble quarry. The screens are designed to incorporate seating for one person. Tennessee marble was chosen for this element, cut and honed from a quarried but uncut stone found on site.

Framework for Design Excellence

This project is a site specific installation and as such the AIA's Framework for Design Excellence was not a stated objective of the artist and design team at the project's outset. It is however respectful to place, specifically an early 20th century East Knoxville marble quarry. Site-quarried stone was used as a seating element to further connect the piece to its place.

The team consisted of all volunteer design and labor from the local community. Architects, artists, designers, craftspeople, and contractors all collaborated to the execution of this piece.