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(soft upbeat music)

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ANDREA ZITTEL: Painting and sculpture, they're 
forms of representation.

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I don't think that anything that 
I do is so dissimilar from that.

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In some way, these are all attempts to talk about

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my own subjective interpretation of the world,

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and to also do something that will relate 
to other people's experiences within it.

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I grew up in very suburban southern California.

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I think my parents had this fantasy

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about building a country home 
in the middle of nowhere.

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So my dad built our home 
on the edge of a mountain.

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By the time I was in high school, it was 
completely built up, it was suburbia.

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It was only after I moved to New York 
that I realized what a gift it was

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to come from someplace so normal.

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I moved to New York in 1990, 
and the first place I lived in

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was this really tiny storefront, also in Brooklyn.

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At that time I was doing really different work.

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I was actually working with 
animals and breeding them.

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For instance, a breeding unit, 
not only would it influence

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the way that the animal would develop,

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But it would also have everything built into 
it that the animal would need for living.

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So, you know, after doing this work and 
living in this tiny space for a while,

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I think that it started to make perfect sense to

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try and create structures like 
that for myself to live in.

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The living unit was meant to function 
for every single thing that I needed.

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You know, I didn't have a shower or 
bathtub, so it had this large plastic sink

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that I could take baths in 
as well as wash my dishes in.

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It had a built-in kitchen area, it had 
a desk area, it had a sleeping area.

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It was sort of like building a house, 
just something that I could own

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and would be permanent and it would just go inside

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of the houses that other people would own.

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I literally believed that when I made that piece

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and I had it completely perfected

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That it would solve all of my problems, you know?

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And it was this really wonderful 
period in my life of feeling like

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I was moving towards this concrete direction.

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And the irony is that when I 
finally finished the living unit

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and it was perfect and there 
was nothing left to do to it,

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I felt completely despondent and very 
sort of, like, listless and depressed.

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And at that point, in sort 
of gauging my own reaction,

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I had this revelation that no 
one really wants perfection.

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We're obsessed with perfection,

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we're obsessed with innovation 
and moving forwards,

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but what we really want is the hope of some sort

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of new and improved or better tomorrow.

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(rumbling outside)

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I think that my work's always been really 
influenced by the places that I've lived in.

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(blinds opening)

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In fact, if you look at every body 
of work, you can trace it back to

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particular circumstances 
that I've had to deal with.

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WOMAN: Well, I mean, the kitchen is a 
good stop, sort of, on the A-Z tour

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because what I said about the 
kitchen and how I used the kitchen.

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Andrea is not a cook, right?

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Which is really obvious because she's 
got a teeny, tiny refrigerator and –

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my chicken lived in the kitchen.

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And her chicken lived in the kitchen.

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But you have this huge table 
in the presentation room

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which facilitates big dinner parties.

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we did stay strict to Andrea's, you know,

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sort of utilitarian bowl system of 
the small, medium, and large bowls.

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–So you just used bowls for your dinner parties?

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There were times when we just used –

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–I've always wondered if you cheated.

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–Oh, yeah.

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I think it's a really nice thing 
to talk about, is this floor.

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I always felt it was this modernism 
put into a domestic framework.

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One of the things, too,

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that I wanted to do with this house was to sort of

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reflect the earlier generations of modernism.

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I usually point to the outside, 
because that's really one of

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the most beautiful parts of the house.

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Particularly a garden in Brooklyn.

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The bathroom at the A-Z, Andrea's house,

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is the tour de force of the house.

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It's sort of the epitome of 
organization, comfort, and utility.

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I mean, the floor is really particular in 
that Andrea hand-laid every tile, right?

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Painstakingly.

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Well, they come in square foot 
sections, but I did that by myself.

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And then you'll notice that the medicine 
cabinets, instead of throwing all of your stuff

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under the sink abyss,

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is organized in "Correction," 
"Tools and implements,"

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"Subtraction," and "Addition."

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And "Addition" is sort of obvious things of –

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cosmetics, skin lotion, deodorant.

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And "Subtraction"?

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Is things for cleansing and taking away.

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And then everything on top is 
organized, labeled accordingly.

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That's sort of it for the bathroom, huh?

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ZITTEL: For nine years I've been 
doing the uniform project,

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where I have one garment 
that I'll wear for a season.

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Originally it was for a six-month season,

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now it's for a four-month season.

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Oh, this is a really good one.

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This is from last spring.

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And it's rayon.

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They kind of get worn out and tattered by the end,

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after wearing them for four months.

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It started because I had an office job

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and I was supposed to wear 
something respectable to work

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but I didn't have that much money.

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Sort of colorful spring dress.

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You know, most of the time, we can 
afford, like, one fabulous outfit

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that you really love to wear.

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But there's some sort of social stigma

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against wearing the same thing two days in a row.

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So I decided that, you know, 
in my case, actually, like,

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variety seemed more oppressive 
or restrictive than continuity.

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So this is basically your standard personal panel.

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For several years, I could wear anything,

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as long as it was made out of a rectangle.

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It ties in the back, and 
the top ties behind my neck.

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The Russian constructivists made 
clothing that was very geometric.

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They felt like when you weave 
fabric, it's in a rectangle.

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So when you actually take that 
rectangle and cut it into other shapes

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and then sew it into even different shapes,

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that you're completely ruining 
the integrity of the fabric.

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I thought I would just take it and for 
fun push it to its furthest extreme,

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which was making garments only from rectangles.

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But with just some subtle changes, you have this 
huge array of, you know, kind of references.

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After a while, I got sort of tired 
of wearing rectangles all the time.

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But keeping within that set of parameters,

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the only thing that I could 
think of that would be like

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a first-hand form of creating something,

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where you're not making one thing 
and changing it into something else,

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was making something from a strand.

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So that's why I've been crocheting my dresses now.

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It's that, you know, everything becomes 
like this one sort of continuous strand.

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The most insane dress is the one 
I'm going to wear next summer,

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or this summer.

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(drawer closing)

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This is actually – this is the dress

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that I've made to wear on the island in Denmark.

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And I started making this over a year 
ago, when I started traveling to Denmark,

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and I realized how cold and 
rainy it is there all the time.

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So this is kind of like the Alpine fantasy dress.

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You know, my parents liked to travel,

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but we didn't have that much money 
because they were school teachers.

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So we would always have these 
sort of crazy summer schemes,

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you know, like going to Europe 
and camping across Europe.

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They had a Volkswagen bus.

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So I spent a lot of time in a very, 
very small space with my family.

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When I was 12, they bought a 31-foot sailboat.

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And so we did sailing trips in that.

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I always hated sailing, but I was really obsessed 
with the way that the boat would function.

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(tap running)

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(tap closed)

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This is actually a model for a second 
variation on a piece that I've been working on

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for the last few years called "A pocket property."

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It's about a 54-foot by 23-foot 
concrete floating island.

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The idea is that it's meant 
– it's, um, your property

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and your dwelling and your vehicle all in one.

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One mass-reproducible component.

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Last summer we basically built the entire island.

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And then it was opened in conjunction 
with an architectural exhibition.

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This summer, actually, in about 3 or 4 days,

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I'm going to go to Denmark 
and live on it for a month.

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And for one part of that, for 
one week of that month actually,

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some friends are going to come 
out, and we're going to make

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a film about the experience 
of living on the island.

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–Hello.

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–I'm Axel.

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I'm from --

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This is Jorgen, my photographer.

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I've actually been trying to call you.

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I'm actually really excited about this project,

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because, you know, in the beginning,

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my art was always very experience-based.

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I mean, in some projects, there's not 
even a tangible product, you know,

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object that comes out in the end.

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Okay, so there's no way we can wait and 
do it, like tomorrow or the next day?

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It's a long trip.

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I feel that having these, like, 
really wonderful experiences,

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which are completely unpredictable –

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you know, like setting up a scenario where 
I test some sort of living situation.

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You know, partially because 
I'm terrified of doing it,

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partially because I'm really, like, you 
know, enchanted by the idea of doing it.

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But not really knowing beforehand if it's going

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to be a great experience or a horrible one.

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Can you see the new plants growing?

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No.

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You have the small ones here?

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Yeah, I planted them a few days ago.

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They're finally starting to grow.

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It looks like what I'm trying 
to remove in my garden,

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you know, with going like this all the time.

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Weeds?

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Yeah.

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Yeah, but on an island, you're 
even grateful for the weeds.

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Don't you have a need to 
get in contact with people?

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That's why I'm out here, 
to get away from you guys.

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Most of your work is like being alone, isn't it?

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Yeah, most of my work's about creating really sort 
of intimate, personal, controllable situations.

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Yeah.

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Like, all of my ideas, they're sort of humorous,

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but they're also a little dark at the same time.

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You know, it's like I have this fantasy of being

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completely autonomous and 
independent and, you know, at peace.

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And, like, not having any of, 
like, the day-to-day problems.

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But then there's also the sense of, 
like, isolation that comes along with it.

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People say that my work's about 
design or it's about leisure.

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But really, I think that it's much –

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like the main issues are 
much less tangible than that.

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The issues that I'm really interested in are,

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you know, human values and perceptions

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and how you think that you understand certain,

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you know, fundamental values that you, you know –

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within your life, and you think 
you understand what they are

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and that you need these things.

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But then they're constantly 
inverting into each other.

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It's like things that you think are liberating

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can actually become extremely 
confining or restrictive or repressive.

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And things that you think are controlling

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can actually give you

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a greater sense of security 
and liberation in the end.