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Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology

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My mother, sister and I vacation in the vineyards of south of France near Marseilles. The land belonged to my grandmother, and after her death my mother and her twin sister. Five miles on a dirt road from the closest town, Le Brulat, the main house stands elevated on weathered stones above the surrounding landscape of loose red earth, grape vine rows, and dry forest. The three houses on the land still retain their agricultural past, with low arched ceilings on the ground floors, and high well lit rooms on the upper. However, one of the houses began to collapse and was slowly defaced by neighboring looters in search of roof tiles and stone. According to French law a house without a roof cannot be rebuilt because it has lost its structural integrity. Because of this, once the main roof beam had been stolen we could no longer rebuild on the ruin’s footprint. In the past ten years of my life the surrounding vegetation has engulfed this ruin. To get to the ruin one has battle through seas of nettle bushes, tangles of vines, and tall grass; however once within its stone walls, upon a mound of the structure’s detritus one finds complete solitude, a hiccup of space within the dense forest. I am strongly attached to this place, not only because it was where I would run away to as a child, but also because of its age and unavoidable return to the earth. Every time I visit this place, more stones have fallen and more vegetation has breached its walls. Unlike the homes we renovate, the buildings we demolish and the ruins we preserve this place has a natural life that evolves with my own.