Claim
installation with fabric, string, thread, bamboo, brick, astroturf, papier-mâché, printed photographic images, rocks, adhesive tape, video, sound
approximately 67" x 96" x 86"
2021

Claim is a concentration of tattered pennants, papier-mâché busts, aerial images, astroturf, bricks, rocks, tape and a tablet that plays a video of a looping black hole set to a military beat. This piece asks a series of questions: Who gets to live? Who gets to work? Who gets to rest? Who wins? Who comes first? Who is watched? Who is protected? Who is paid attention? Who owns the land? What is owed? To who?

This installation was created in isolation during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequently exhibited at Maryland Art Place in Baltimore, MD. While rooted in place I began to synthesize thoughts and experiences surrounding these questions that were prompted by prior travel to Central Europe, South America, Eastern Europe, and the former Yugoslavia. Claim was also hugely shaped by the 2020-21 Belarusian protests, the 2020 George Floyd/Black Lives Matter demonstrations, the 2020 Beirut explosion, the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War, and the 2021 attack on the United States Capitol.