Installation view of FEVER, The Grey Space in the Middle, Den Haag, NL 2023
2023
Appropriated imagery from US Department of Defense, silk screen on cardboard, human cadaver bags
Silkscreen and enamel on mylar emergency blanket
Bliss Point: Autopsies are two dimensional works of silk screen and enamel paintings on mylar emergency blankets. Using what I call the material culture of disaster— mass produced objects distributed by the state during disaster scenarios to meet the basic requirements of human life— I examine the role of the state in not only responding to, but manufacturing disaster. The mylar emergency blanket is an object intended to substitute the basic units of shelter-- by visualizing the internal body on this external shield, the fragility of the blanket's inhabitants (often displaced due to circumstanced beyond their control) are made visible.
Using appropriated imagery from the US Department of Defense, this installation recalls a warehouse or bureaucratic office receiving a shipment of supplies. While the boxes are marked as rations, the contents are human cadaver bags. While this satirical tableau is an indictment on how the US government approaches care, it also mirrors a real-life event in the early days of COVID19 when a Native American health center requested PPE, and instead was sent body bags.