These Houses Float in a Paper Dreamscape

As a manifestation of the subconscious, dreams often make for complex visual landscapes when brought into the physical realm. But on the other side of the spectrum are the dreams we consciously create— our goals and aspirations in life.

Nicki Crock focuses specifically on one classic part of the American dream: buying a house. Her piece Dream House reflects on what it means to long for the perfect house — and what exactly makes it an ideal home.

Moving into one’s own house (with a picket white fence, perhaps) symbolizes economic stability and upward mobility to many. The physical house also embodies many intangible themes: what it means to make a place a home and find a sense of belonging.

Crock explores these themes in Dream House, a paper installation that gives a tangible interpretation of a very common goal. Through the mediums of installation, performance and sculpture, Crock often tackles the themes of “domestic spaces, transformation and the search for home.” She also draws from her own personal experience.

“Most of my artwork comes out of a nomadic period I went through in my late teens and early twenties,” Crock tells The Creators Project. “I’m semi-settled now in Columbus, Ohio, but that period of transition and the contrast in stability I have now sparked an interest in what the idea of home and community means, and those themes make up the basis of my art practice.”

Dream House consists of many paper parts hanging from the ceiling. Like planets in orbit, round structures surround paper houses complete with small steps, windows and a front porch. The all-white installation seems to float above the ground. The composition recalls the very nature of its subject matter: the way that each person seems to have an image of their own dream house forever floating in their heads. Each house looks different but each dream is similar.

“A dream house is something to aspire to and long for, and what better form could a daydream take shape in, than with something that we, as humans, already use to fulfill our imaginations: a cloud,” wrote Crock. “I wanted to create a space in the gallery that would feel weightless and dreamlike, replicating cloud shapes and landscape in paper to create a dreamscape with models of houses that I’ve coveted perched throughout.”

This idea of desire is subtly communicated in the installation. The absence of color denies a flashiness to the houses — the viewer must instead pay attention to its architectural characteristics. Each detail that Crock painstakingly created comes through even more powerfully without the use of color. Viewers can also fill in the non-physical elements: how many people would live in the home, what memories would be created there or what object would be inside.

As something we “already use to fulfill our imaginations,” the cloud encourages this daydreaming and imaginative storytelling. Just as we find shapes and figures in clouds passing by, Dream House lets us shape each paper house into what we imagine as our ideal house and home.

See more of Nicki Crock’s work on her website.

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