The Gingerbread Girl

Former Residence of 339 Franklin SW, Grand Rapids, MI (2016)

Created for ArtPrize 2016 with SiTE:LAB, The Gingerbread Girl transformed an abandoned Rumsey Street home through architectural intervention. By removing plaster from four rooms, I exposed the fragile lattice of lath beneath—an interior skeleton resembling the ruled lines of a diary. Onto these “pages,” I inscribed private writings, revealing both the architecture’s hidden body and my own.

The title nods to a novella by Stephen King, where a grieving woman discovers survival through running. Similarly, this work engages the tension between confinement and endurance: the repetition of wooden slats casting shadows that both imprison and steady, much like breath, stride, or heartbeat. What remains is a house laid bare, a site where grief, strength, and memory intersects. Its structure becoming both a journal and a cage, both a ruin and a testament to resilience.