James Casebere - portrait

James Casebere

Abigail Cohen Rome Prize
September 9, 2019–April 3, 2020
Profession
Artist, Canaan, New York
Project title
On the Waters’ Edge
Project description

I plan to continue a series of photographs, On the Waters’ Edge, in which I postulate a new form of public architecture, which is a combination beach house, lifeguard station, bathhouse, and changing room. In the images, I juxtapose these structures with the threat of rising sea levels, and severe storms associated with climate change. I plan to build scale models, light and photograph them, and make prints at the Academy. In addition, I would design similar life-sized pavilions for the future, based on this new hybrid form of modifiable public accommodation, beginning with singular units and building up interlocking modular structures that make larger labyrinthian configurations. Central to my process is access to the American Academy library and institutional archives, as well as the unique resources of the larger city, to research, better understand, and apply ancient proportional systems and modular mathematical relationships in architecture.