2018
My family immigrated from Germany to the U.S. in the late 1800’s. Like many that came before them, they settled on land stolen from Native Americans.
America was founded through violent means, and the nature of its founding has seeped into our cultural fabric, creating a never-ending cycle of cruelty that expresses its self in a variety of ways.
To begin to break down such a cycle, work must start at the level of the individual. Coping with and reworking our systemic culture of violence requires the individual to do a myriad of things, but I think that these things can fall under three categories:
1) to reflect and and pursue the healing of individual traumas
2) to understand their role as an individual and as a group in perpetrating violence unto others
3)to study and develop a nuanced understanding of the enacted traumas that have occurred before us
Without the active and continual pursuit of these three things, space is made for systemic violence to continue. Through the art work shown, I provide a tangible example of the three categories stated earlier so that the viewer can develop a greater understanding of how the individual’s work towards coping with and reworking this systemic culture of violence can express its self.
A means of healing myself, 2018, assless chaps made of laser-engraved, naturally dyed velvet
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i(we) you (me) can perpetrate and empathize at the same time, 2018, kombucha leather, wood, abaca pulp, water, plywood, fasteners, sapele
Gilligan, 2018, Sabrina Harman, "The Most Curious Thing" by Errol Morris", "Exposure: The woman behind the camera at Abu Ghraib " by Philip and Errol Morris, kombucha SCOBY, abaca pulp, water, ferrous sulfate-based chemical reactions, vinyl, fur, natural-dyed velvet and skin crepe, SONY FDMavica 4x, sapele, plywood, fasteners
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