Collapse and Equilibrium: Michelle Lopez Interviewed
By Olivia Gauthier for BOMB Magazine
April 15, 2020
“In Michelle Lopez’s site-specific installation Ballast and Barricades, ladders, scaffolding, rubble, wood, and bits of rock are suspended and carefully placed on the floor of the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in Philadelphia.
“The Philadelphia-based sculptor presents an urban, architectural landscape in flux. It features a suspended slice of a house, surrounded by what could be construction or demolition materials, some of which is also suspended. The whole installation suggests a moment of pause in the ever-shifting gentrification of cities. A sense of loss is met with unease as one circumvents the precariously placed ladders and scaffolding, bent and twisted into sculptural forms rendered ineffectual. Ballast and Barricades is emblematic of an environment like Philadelphia that is, like many current cities, riddled with construction and destruction sites that perpetuate the instability of urban landscapes as they are uprooted and made into precarious conditions for much of the population…”