What the hell is that trailer outside of Sterling?

Tucked in the shadow of Sterling sits a tiny trailer covered in signs, construction glue and chicken scratch notes written in green Sharpie.

Only here for the weekend, the trailer and table beside it were surrounded by a crowd of students poking and prodding at the plywood. So, naturally, The Tab decided to investigate.

Expecting a completely granola response, we were shocked when we sat down with Eli Whitney student, Harper Keehn, and asked him about his project.

I’m just going to come out and ask, what is this?

Incidentally, it’s a place to live. But really, it’s a way to have interactions and relationships and be in environments that I would otherwise never be able to get in to. Like right now, talking to you, or being with all these people in front of Sterling. And if I say, okay, that’s my project and I have this thing and it’s well enough to find that I can say, ‘look at this with me!’ and, you know, then we’re looking at it and then something happens.

And that’s the process, that’s how it’s been. I just had an idea and a basic shape and then all these friends came in a really incredible way and helped me build the shell, and then I drove it on this big loop. And as I was going, I was building the whole time. But it’s been a relief to feel, oh I don’t have to plan this! I just have to show up and be responsive.

So it’s more about people than the actual trailer?

HK: Yeah, I think. I think about buildings and objects and stuff like the because that’s what I’m comfortable with, but it seems by analogy relevant to other places. but it’s like, the idea that you make these quick commitments to a plan, you say, ‘this is a really good plan i should go do it’. and then that’s some hot, true, good moment and you say, ‘yup, I’m going to do it. We’re going to make this building this shape’ or ‘I’m going to be a doctor’ or ‘I’m going to be in this relationship’. and then as soon as you make that commitment and go from saying ‘this is good’ to ‘this is good and it should continue’, then to me it feels really tiring quickly. Like, now all I have to do is roll up my sleeves and all there’s left is execution. And what I like about this is that it’s just always a surprise. I don’t really  have a plan for it

There’s also an adorable dog names Lola because of course there is.

Where have you taken the trailer?

The big shape of the loop was from the Hudson Valley in New York to New Mexico to Montana, through Canada to Maine and then down the Eastern seaboard. With lots of looking about everywhere. Lots of the places were cities like Chicago and St. Louis and Toronto and whatever, but a lot of time was spent at ranches that I used to work at or places to see my friends or campgrounds.

Where is the coolest place you’ve parked?

Well this is the most surreal. But I don’t know, the coolest was probably when it happened that I ended up overlapping with two friends while they were getting married in New Mexico and they had just moved into this ranch, so I got to see their life there for a couple of days and take pictures of the wedding.

One thing that struck me and that I really enjoyed was that I would be on some interstate with the 2 o’clock blues after eating lunch and I’m really tired so I think, oh okay I’ll just pull over in this rest stop. The place is totally anonymous, but I can go into the back and it feels like going home and I take a nap in the back and it’s wonderful. So in a way, these little forgettable spots were the parts I remember the most because they were the most at home.

It’s an open-concept kitchen.

So why here at Yale?

Yeah, I’m a Eli Whitney student. I was in the architecture undergraduate major but, I don’t know… What I was saying earlier that I like the feeling of responding to things that happen, but I just felt like college was making me drag my feet. I felt like there you had to plan more than I could and that made me uncomfortable and not proud of the work I was doing. So anyways, I left that and now I’m a humanities major and just do whatever.

But I mostly wanted to be here just to see what happens. I just this had this vision of it! Wouldn’t it be remarkable to have this little thing, which is SO dissimilar to everything around it! I mean, oh my God what it took to make even this patio here is just unbelievable! And we don’t even notice it! I think that’s a thing that I really came to pay attention to over the course of this, was that any construction requires so much. Even this iPhone that you’re recording on. If we could see what it took to put this together; the entire world was harnessed to make this iPhone! It’s been literally all over the world and traveled thousands and thousands of miles, and here we are using it and it’s totally natural. It’s really easy not to notice that, that we’re working with really big numbers in almost every part of life, especially here at Yale. Yale is like a nucleus of incredibly dense substances. How many books are in sterling, how much food goes through the dining halls, how fast people move, both literally and in their life planning goals.

This trailer is something which is only very slow and nothing perfect. You can see where the varnish leaked and where all the little screw heads don’t line up and where there’s a rough edge or I jotted a note down to myself. This tape, even, why is it there? I can’t remember but now I feel really attached to it and it reminds me that I was there and that it all took long time. So I guess that juxtaposition between this kind of building which is so slow and contingent and revised versus the perfection or facade of very finished surfaces around is why I chose to put it here.

Has this taught you anything? Both being here and the general experience that this has brought you

There have been lots of time where I have thought, god, what have I gotten myself in to. But being here and having people come by is a whole other project. When making this, I got to really wallow in a wonderful way while practicing all of this really slow work, what it feels like to drive that whole distance, and having the experience of having a one to one ratio with what I’m putting out and what I’m seeing.

But it’s a whole other project to share this with everybody and what I’m thinking right now is, what does this mean for anybody else? Why am I set up here with signs that invite people to come inside? I really love that, though, to have people just inside and touching everything.

That’s so funny, because you would think it’s almost violating to have so many strangers in what is essentially your home

I know! But that’s the thrill to me! Because, okay, what’s the worst case scenario? Someone walks in and sits on it wrong and it breaks, but so what? I’ll fix it! And there will be that much more which is in it.

It’s like a story capsule

A story capsule! Yes, exactly! I can get in it and look around and see all of these story capsule notes that I wrote in shorthand and understand because I wrote it, but what I wonder is, does anybody else feel it? Can you really go inside and feel what it took to make it? That’s why I started putting these green arrows so I could show people that, you know, that hole wasn’t just there, somebody drilled it! So that means something.

Do you live in a residential college or do you live in this during the year?

Neither, I live in an apartment in East Rock. This stays at a friend’s farm in East Haven. Next year I might see what it would take to live out of it year round, but I’m not sure yet. I know I’ll continue using it, I just don’t know how.

What I get uncomfortable about is that everything I care about is in it. So when I talk about it, I can’t tell if it’s useful to other people or is it a kind of strange training project that I had for myself or a thinking project?

Well I find it fascinating!

HK: Good! One person, that’s enough. Another thing that got clarified over the summer is that it doesn’t really matter whether or not I make this or whether or not it ends up a certain way. Feeling it out became my best trick, and what I mean by that is, if it’s tiring, that just means that I’m not using my energy well. The people around me are helping out and I’m not dignifying that. So that exhaustion is a really good indicator of whether or not I should keep going with that thing. If it’s a pleasure and it’s fun then that means that something good is happening and I don’t have to have a reason for why, but it means that it’s kind of an efficient use of energy. On one hand feeling it, on the other this kind of pleasant resignation that it doesn’t really matter, there’s no reason to force the issue. If people aren’t enjoying it then why do it? It sounds like a pretty dumb thing to say, but it’s simple!

So it’s not THAT I’m doing this, it’s HOW. It looks like this particularly and I could never make one that looks same, nor would I want to. I could go through the same process and make something completely different that does the same stuff for me and hopefully other people.