Sophie Durbin
In the 1950s, Taconite Harbor was a bustling two-block community of pastel-colored prefab homes, each with its own backyard and paved driveway. Now abandoned by the 1980s due to pollution from the nearby taconite plant, the town is now only recognizable by a lone street lamp, a few leftover curbs, and several fragmented house foundations. This reliquary box pays homage to this short-lived American Dreamscape, combining rocks and sediment found at Taconite Harbor with pebbles from the mouth of the nearby Cross River, where missionary Father Baraga planted a wooden cross in 1846.
