Tracy Featherstone and Krista Connerly

The recent brouhaha over the Sears Tower’s name change suggests buildings inspire intense feelings. Now you can hug them, thanks to Tracy Featherstone and Krista Connerly’s 2008 Envirotouchers—which also invite you to embark on a meaningful relationship with a parking lot.

In their artist statement, the longtime collaborators say they created these wearable sculptures so people could get closer to their environments. This small but enjoyable show documents the literal-mindedness of Connerly and Featherstone’s mission: In three photographs, a man cocooned in their sleeping bag–like Building Snuggle wraps its appendage (a blanket) around a tree, an electrical pole and a basketball hoop, giving these mundane elements of the streetscape a warm embrace.

In their Parking Lot Line Drawing project, the artists persuade more than 20 people to tape vertical lines to their chests. The duo photograph their subjects lying on the pavement, extending or redrawing the lines with their bodies. If you normally isolate yourself from the germs and strangers roaming outside, these human chains seem oddly brave.

Yet Featherstone and Connerly’s work still portrays the natural world as a more romantic date than the gritty city. Their altered photos of individuals wearing the inflatable Becoming-Cloud Suit are breathtaking, even though the white “suit” is no more than a set of pillows sewn to a mattress with an attached hood. The would-be clouds look as if they’re floating thousands of feet above the landscape, bright sunlight playing across their faces at convincing angles. Given that this low-tech show’s most seductive piece depends on indoor computer skills, we’re afraid our environment will have to resort to Facebook to get our attention.

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