Harpo Foundation is pleased to support the publication James Benning's Cabins Project: Curiosity and Conviction, a co-publication between A.R.T. Press, NY and East of Borneo, and California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA. The book is being edited by Julie Ault and is scheduled to be printed in February 2011.

James Benning's Cabins Project: Curiosity and Conviction is a project-based book that documents, frames and analyses a body of work that the critically acclaimed filmmaker has been researching and developing for the past three years. Benning has reconstructed Henry David Thoreau's and Ted Kaczynski's iconic cabins, and used these structures as a lens through which to reflect on particular aspects of the American cultural landscape. The Cabins Project investigates models of social isolation in American culture and inquires of the boundaries between dystopian and utopian principles inherent in such seclusion. As with much of his films, the Cabins Project is a way of translating the experience (and consequences) of place. The book will include photographic documentation by Benning, commissioned essays by Ault, Benning, and Dick Hebdige, as well as excerpts from the writings of Thoreau and Kaczynski. (Source: Art Resources Transfer grant proposal)