Visitors are invited to enter the house and spend time in it, determining their own route as they walk in and around the rooms. The shallow berms of sand marking the plan outline are not reinforced by any bonding or thickening material, and thus potentially vulnerable to disturbance by the visitors. Even the slightest, unwitting touch of the toe of the shoe in a berm can result in a cascading shower of red soil granules and damage the outline. The fragility of the structure is very real: the risk of damage is not just a poetic or political metaphor, and requires the visiting public to act with the utmost care and caution. During the exhibition, the artist will regularly visit the installation with a group of students, to observe and examine and, if necessary, repair the installation in accordance with the protocols and procedures that he will formulate. In this regard, the installation is an ongoing process that will carry on for the duration of the exhibition (a period of several months), with the visitors’ behavior forming an integral part of it and its meaning.

The scene of events outlined in Ullman’s Semi-Detached installation – which can be appreciated in its entirety from the elevated perspective that this unique hall makes possible – we might speculate as to the story behind the structure and its symbolism: an ancient dwelling uncovered by an archeological dig, perhaps, or the remains of a contemporary home that was vaporized in an instant in a cataclysmic explosion that annihilated all living and inanimate things within, reducing them to mere piles of sand. Either way, it evokes an analogy between the house – a vulnerable shell whose purpose is to protect, define and shield the living organism within it – and a political entity, or the human body.

Thus, Ullman’s two-family dwelling analogy offers an ecosystem that links together the human body, house, and country; the archetypal with the tangible; mythical time with contemporary time; a model with a program for a person’s actual existence; and one person’s existence with that of another. Through the sand, Ullman appears to be urging us to study what it means to maintain good neighborly relations and common courtesy, which may enable peaceful coexistence and continuity in this locale.

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