With the rapidly increasing cost of living in a city of urban decay, the utilization of found space as a base for communicating concepts became introduced. The statements presented by the Cathedral of Labor indicate the importance of work and placing this labor into the realm of worship (recontextualizing objects and labor into relics and rituals). The physical act of spending time in this space, scrubbing its walls, cleaning debris, and rebuilding lost portions creates a connection to the space.
Through extensive documentation, the temporal aspect of the piece is illuminated. Seeing the progress and experiencing the environment in an artistic setting allows for a transfer of context. Labor becomes performance, and the erasure of marks becomes the piece.
The harvested artifacts present both the labor and the space to new audiences in physical forms. The linear strips of floor, wall, and ceiling present a scaled slice of simulation of the actual space. With floor tiles, wall tiles, drywall, and clayboard harvested from the actual building, it is similar to coring a tree in a dendrochronological study.
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