Making Uncomfortable Art

It was 2009 and I was sitting in a contemporary art seminar— the curriculum being mostly history (40%), theory (40%), written assignments (10%) and the occasional art project (10%). Using my hands, creating something that held personal meaning, was always the most stimulating part of studying art and so I usually invested most of my time and efforts in that last 10% (resulting in some unfortunate grades).  

Our midterm task was to create a map of “My America”, with whatever medium we like, and to reflect on what calling this land “home” meant to us. Whoever said universities are a microcosm for larger nationalist projects? Hm. 

Anyways, I decided to have fun with this ridiculous assignment. My mind was sprinting, and a smorgasbord of hot words was buzzing around in my brain. Being insufferably political in nature, I wasn’t thinking of sweet tea and freedom like my colleagues. Nor was I into highlighting all of the US cities that I had visited by scribbling their state fruit (despite loving apples!) onto a map of North America. I was thinking imperialism. No, wait. IMPERIALISM. That’s how it appeared in my head. 

Having spent a profound summer in Palestine just months before, I couldn’t shake the reality that I no longer isolated my upbringing in the US from the upbringing that its foreign policy had thwarted for many loved ones abroad. I decided to question "My America" and it's place in the world and I didn't think I was causing any real waves with a message that seemed so obvious to me. After all, how could one talk about “home” without some level of national introspection? Well, it appears it was possible for just about every single student in that seminar. Except bad ol’ me. I just had to “make everyone uncomfortable,” according to one student during my critique. 

America The Hand

Instead of using the land mass of the US to define the contours of my “home”, I used an outline of the almighty Hand that it had come to represent to me. Positioned in an ocean without any other land in sight, the Hand actually holds a multitude of flags within its surface, representing the control and demand that it asserts over other nation states. The Hand also holds testimonies and poetry written by people from these countries that have suffered the wrath of the Hand. Take note that we don’t see faces. We don’t see lands or thriving cultures. Just flags. For this is how I perceive the Hand's vision when it looks beyond its borders. The materials used also have symbolic value: the wooden pallet: a fragile and broken foundation, a gold leaf halo: American glory, the floating mirror shards: American militarism and the barbed wire: a culture premised on defense and closed borders (not to mention the use of barbed material in US military operations). Ultimately, “My America” says so little about me and my worldview. My America is controlling, manipulated by the wrist that serves the interests of the 1%, ready to grasp at whatever it wills. My America made me uncomfortable. And I wanted the consequences of this reality, through my artistic representation, to engage my fellow classmates. And it did, surprisingly creating a first-time dialogue on American imperialism for many of them. 

So in response to the concern that I was “making everyone uncomfortable”, I simply said, “Thank you. That was the point.”