[Material Exchange's] newest project at ThreeWalls Solo, "The Way Things Drag Their Futures Around," was inspired by Martin Heidegger's discussion of a hammer in a carpenter's workshop in the philosopher’s seminal work "Being and Time." As a thing in the world, the hammer is understood in terms of its future use, how it points to its own definite and uncertain possibilities—to hammer a nail, to join separate pieces of wood, to make a table. In this exhibition, one large mulberry tree and several smaller branches slated for removal by the city have been transported to the gallery and reassembled horizontally with an additional tree house to resemble a backyard disaster of yore. The questions are manifold, but Material Exchange is centrally concerned about the tree's entropy and new life: do the dried leaves, the wood, the bark call out for specific uses, or do we bestow its utility, its identity, its futurity?

¶ 10:17 PM