If you can read this...

Spring 2017

This is an incomplete sculpture consisting of the red table, a 6-feet by 8-feet screen print on stretch canvas, and a tablet device. The piece is meant to be displayed in high foot-traffic, public areas.

Artist Statement

At this phase in my work, I was questioning the impact of art. I care deeply about a lot of issues, from climate change to voter suppression to homelessness, so I wanted to make art could contribute to create the world that I wanted to see. Thus, this piece is intended to not only be seen, but interacted with. This incomplete sculpture becomes complete only when a viewer participates by picking up the tablet.

This piece is reusable. The tablet is, of course, easily mutable. The displayed content can be changed to any meaningful task, whether it be writing to government representatives or signing petitions or just sending a heartfelt message to a family member. However, the message is always that it is the individual that holds the power to make an impact.

The visual language of the piece borrows from several sources. The sign is billboard-esque, invoking a feeling of advertising. Of course, the sign does have a purpose in drawing the attention of a viewer to the much smaller tablet. I skirt the feeling of commercial advertising by using silkscreen printing, which, ironically, was once considered an impersonal form of production. However, silkscreen printing the ideal process for the work because of the imperfections that it introduces, which makes the work feel handmade and personal. The cloth-covered table is inviting and resembles the check-in table that would be found at a voting site, which topically ties into political theme of the original installation.

I was inspired by the work of two other artists. Barbara Kruger's text installations were an undeniable reference for creating large, confrontational text pieces. Erwin Wurm has an installation called One Minute Sculptures, where viewers use props to become temporary additions in his artwork.

Initial Installation

The initial piece was created at a time of high public mobilization. Betsy DeVos was undergoing a contentious confirmation process and the Women's March and Indivisible were inspiring large numbers of people to political action, many of them for the very first time. The message of the time was that anyone could participate, and everyone's voice mattered.

That sentiment was true before 2017 and will [hopefully] be true after. This piece is intended to be a reminder of that message. The requirement, "If you can read this...", explicitly lowers any standard necessary for participating in the political conversation. Some people feel that they lack the time, or the policy knowledge, or the eloquence. This installation confronts those assumptions and boldly states that the conversation is open to all.

This piece is complete with someone approaches it, picks up the tablet, and sends a message to their Congressional representatives, as shown in the third image.