And The Street Was Full of Voids
Rubber casts of potholes, pigment, steel, hardware
6’ x 5.5’ x 5”
The sculptures and photographs in Something That Breaks Your Skin investigate the materials and forms of road infrastructure, and their accompanying faults, for the coded meanings that are embedded within them.
Infrastructures operate as if they are neutral and necessary substrates, yet their function– to shape our relationship to our environment and each other– is inherently an exercise of power. They are used, yet unseen; mostly taken for granted until they falter.
So, what does that make a pothole?
The pothole is: a gap, a record of neglect, a fault, an indicator of decay.
A reminder that road is a space that has been claimed.
It is a void in that claim.
In And The Street Was Full of Voids, the casts of the interior space of potholes hang heavily from hooks. The casting of potholes sculpturally manifests the voids in these roadways– their cracks, ridges, crevices– archiving the space that is missing, yet to be maintained.
The photographic series Standard Practice, traces a history of material violence: cracking, bleeding, bumps and sags, punchout, fatigue, patching, rutting, and so on. The series recreates photographs from a U.S. Army Corp. of Engineers manual on road quality assessment, framing them next to text excerpts from the same document. The manual, which was adopted by state and governmental agencies to layout a road grading system, draws connections between these taxonomies– the wounds in both bodies and roads.
Collectively, the artworks in this installation address a power dynamic between road and body, state and citizen, material and effect. Often provoking an underlying eroticism, they suggest the possible ways our bodies are intertwined with and affected by the built environment. Yet, these artworks show the materials and forms that manifest these dynamics as flawed or permeable, building a counter-archive, exposing or eroding the often hidden power dynamics that are coded inside of built space.
And The Street Was Full of Voids
Rubber casts of potholes, pigment, steel, hardware
6’ x 5.5’ x 5”
And The Street Was Full of Voids
Rubber casts of potholes, pigment, steel, hardware
6’ x 5.5’ x 5”
Standard Practice
Silver gelatin print, U.S. state asphalt repair manual, mat, wooden frame
Standard Practice (Bleeding)
Silver gelatin print, U.S. state asphalt repair manual, mat, wooden frame
18" x 20" x 2”
Standard Practice (Cracking)
Silver gelatin print, U.S. state asphalt repair manual, mat, wooden frame
18" x 20" x 2”
Slick With Oil
Photograph on imitation silk, rebar, hardware
6.5’ x 4’ x 2’
Slick With Oil
Photograph on imitation silk, rebar, hardware
6.5’ x 4’ x 2’