Since founding Minneapolis-based studio Dream the Combine in 2013, partners in life and work Jennifer Newsom and Tom Carruthers have played at the intersection of experiential art and design, with projects like Make It Rain and Longing that distort perception in both materiality and experience. Coined by their son, the practice’s name reflects the all-encompassing nature of their work, which aims to complicate our relationship with the built environment. “We were staying in Upstate New York pretty close to a farm, and he actually meant a combine harvester. But there was something outside the typical structure of language that was appealing to us,” Newsom says.
Working Dynamic
Carruthers likens their process to film director Andrei Tarkovsky, insofar as both parties work more in metaphors than symbols. Considering work in this way allows the duo to better understand “how you can have two things in relation to each other with a capacity for infinite meaning,” he says. Newsom regards this difference in thinking an asset. “On paper, there are all these things that seem diametrically opposed,” she says. “We’re the other of each other, but that’s part of our strength. We consider multiple vantage points.”
A collaboration with artist-engineer Clayton Binkley of Arup, the looping and circulatory system of Lure in Seattle encourages exploration and curiosity
Winner’s Circle
Dream the Combine’s Hide & Seek installation won the 2018 Young Architects Program by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) PS1 in Queens, New York, and was featured in the museum’s courtyard as part of the institution’s annual Warm Up concert and event program. The 18,000-square-foot network of steel, glass mirror planes, graphite, netting, and shade material promoted accessibility and inclusion as it guided movement and encouraged visitors “to see that courtyard in a new way,” Newsom says. Carruthers adds: “We started to feel there was an opportunity to de-privilege and destabilize that courtyard from being the known and storied space that it is.”
The Public Realm
The unpredictability of user engagement keeps Carruthers awake at night. But Newsom observes the dynamic between audiences and art as more enthralling. Call and response informs the duo’s work and ultimately defines it. “The [installations] occupy people’s minds in different ways,” Carruthers says. “Those who get to see our pieces are the ones who are authoring it.”
Teaming up with Binkley of Arup once again, Hide & Seek at MoMA PS1 promotes accessibility and movement with its framework of steel trusses, concrete-walled courtyards, and mirrors
Photos by Pablo Enriquez and Caylon Hackwith
This article originally appeared in HD’s August 2020 issue.
