Two Cabins

Between July 2007 and June 2008, veteran independent filmmaker James Benning constructed replicas of two iconic American cabins in a remote area of the High Sierras: Henry David Thoreau’s cabin from Walden Pond and the one-room plywood shack in rural Montana from which Theodore John Kaczynski, known as the "Unabomber," carried out his 16-year bombing campaign through the U.S. mail. The contrast between these two modest structures raises and connects deeply conflicted and enduring American myths regarding the scope and meaning of personal liberty, civic responsibility, and the rule of law; individual conscience, democracy, and civil disobedience; the transcendental value of nature, wilderness, and the right to exploit natural resources; American exceptionalism, environmental conservation, and belief in technological progress; the imperative to reinvent oneself, to "succeed," and, if necessary, to "secede."