Part of the Contemporary Conversation series at the Bermuda National Gallery is this large-scale installation by artist Michael Walsh entitled Founded in Nothing. The public is invited to meander along a winding path through the sculpture. Hundreds of identical cardboard houses which have been reduced to their simplest form without any striking architectural details or embellishments are clustered together on either side of the path facing each other thereby engaging the viewer in conversation. The houses are perched on top of a series of splayed wire buttresses at different heights and appear to undulate gently over an imaginary landscape. The steel supports on which the houses are mounted maintain their upright integrity only because of the house which is perched on top, creating a symbiotic link between house and support.
Although executed on a smaller scale than the artist had originally intended, Founded in Nothing is a visually striking piece which immediately arrests the attention of everyone entering the gallery. Several other of Walsh's pieces such as Mine, a hollow wooden ball and white picket fence and i*a favourite We Did Nothing are also featured in the show which ends on Saturday.