Artist's semi-detached view of his father's life

Four years ago, the artist Michael Landy destroyed every possession he owned, shredding, grinding and taking apart more than 7,000 items in the name of art in his project Breakdown 2001.

Four years ago, the artist Michael Landy destroyed every possession he owned, shredding, grinding and taking apart more than 7,000 items in the name of art in his project Breakdown 2001.

Now he has unveiled a year-long project which painstakingly does the opposite by detailing his father's possessions in a life-size sculpture of the house in which he grew up in Essex and in which his parents still live.

The installation, called Semi-detached, at the Duveen Galleries at Tate Britain from today, will be destroyed when the exhibition finishes on 12 December. The replica bears the exact dimensions of the family home but is cut in half. Inside are two screens displaying photographs and videos that trace the everyday trivia that his 65-year-old father has been collecting since he was disabled by an industrial accident in 1977, when the artist was 13.

Landy, 41, took 297 photographs of the house in an effort to remain faithful to the original and experts had to complete the pointing in the brick work and pebble dashing inside the gallery.

Landy recently spoke of the impact of his father's accident in a newspaper interview. He said: "It was a kind of defining moment in my family. I felt that I needed to articulate that."