This box of “candies” was made in tribute to all those who lost their homes and livelihoods in the construction of Quabbin Reservoir in the 1930s. It is also a tribute to those who grew up there, like myself, and the new memories created there that make it my home.

The wooden box features an acrylic inlay of the reservoir, with a tiny star that represents my house. Inside the box, nestled in sand I collected from Quabbin’s shores, are replaces of objects that I have found there over the years. Each object is dipped in a thick coat of acrylic “chocolate,”  to create a visual dissonance of strange/enticing. On the walls of the box are faintly engraved roadmaps of the four towns that were flooded, showing distorted pathways and lettering.