I had just moved to America--more specifically, to Toronto, Canada--from Paris. I was walking home one afternoon when, just feet away, a car veered off the road and rammed into a house. Or through a house. There, in the middle of someone's living room, was the crumpled front end of the car--beside the gilded end table, on which Michaelangelo's David still stood intact in miniature reproduction, and on top of the sofa, its floral upholstery covered in plastic. I was amazed. I still couldn't get used to the huge size of American cars, and I was equally surprised that the house's brick facade was fake. A thin veneer. The speed of the machine (and the speed with which that house must have been built) sliced through the boundary between the public street and the private home.

And that's when I started using building materials-like bricks and tiles--in my work. I use architectural forms as metaphors for systems that, at the same time, enclose and exclude, protect and reject. I'm interested in the boundaries these systems create and how these boundaries are transgressed. I'm interested in the impact of structures--whether material, theoretical, social, or political--on individuals and communities.

For this current project I have created a bunker. The bunker's monolithic form embodies memories of ancient tombs, but its blank surface, devoid of decorative relief, betrays no connection to specific cultures or periods of history. The bunker imposes order on its environment, dividing "inside" from "outside." It is a space of anticipation, within which one barricades oneself and waits for the worst. The bunker is a site of zero tolerance, whose mere presence signifies that there exists an Other out there, to be feared and fought.

Leonard Ursachi New York, 1998