The Miniature Goal

Opening tomorrow, Saturday, February 1, at 2 pm slt at the Art India Gallery, curated by Quan Lavender, is The Miniature Goal by Haveit Neox. The installation, set in a space measuring about 100x40 square meters, features a miniature city set along the coast of a sea, but with oil derricks looming in the distance, a juxtaposition that suggests tension between the charming town and its source of energy. And, indeed, there is environmental disharmony: "What if our physical world shrunk in proportion to the resources we drain from it?" asks Haveit—and we understand that the residents of this city, who at first appear to be giants towering over the buildings, are, in fact, normal in size, and that instead their homes have shrunk.

Haveit poses the question, "We deplete resources all across the globe, yet in our homes we may feel few repercussions. Though we don’t actually visit the oil spills, the cleared forests, or the mines, let’s imagine how it would appear, were our everyday life reflected proportionately to the current depletion. If our bedroom walls were to shrink at the same percentage as the forests or the extinction of species for instance, how high exactly would our walls become?"

The rhetoric all a bit too doom and gloom for me (not that I'm not concerned about the environment!), but the installation itself is striking and captivating, and a spatial delight to experience. The parcel's windlight is set to sunset, so Haveit designed the city around that particular environmental setting, but others work admirably well. The Miniature Goal will remain on display through March.