Utopian Projection
“I began as an American optimist albeit a critical one, formed by our racial legacy and by the Vietnam War…I became an American Skeptic, not as to the long search for justice and dignity, which is part of all human history, but in the light of my nation’s leading role in demoralizing and destabilizing that search, here at home and around the world. Perhaps just such a passionate skepticism, neither cynical nor nihilistic, is the ground for continuing.” – Adrienne Rich
The critical compassion in the work of Adrienne Rich is important to me. While reading her work, certain lines and phrases almost bring me to my knees. It’s as if I had received a revelation of some sort of universal truth. These prints are remixes of some of my favorite phrases/lines from Rich’s work in Dream of a Common Language and Tonight No Poetry Will Serve.
For the past several years, my solo studio work has consisted of large scale outdoor projections of text based videos. I think of this series of prints as an extension of that work. The phrase “utopian projection” in Tonight No Poetry Will Serve sums up the goal of my work in a nice, neat two word package.