Bold Disobedience, Weinberg Newton Gallery Chicago 2017
A chain-link fence is an object devoid of color, scaled-down, and abstracted by a repeated pattern. It is a gritty and sobering architectural object surrounding private property, especially charged when taken out of context into the gallery space. The project merges the atmosphere of the socioeconomic melting pot of Chicago. It is embedded with narratives of the city’s landscape that leads from a trip from home to school; this architectural object folds in multiple meanings beyond gentrification. It also speaks to special justice alluding to the prison industrial complex and restricted borders.
The gallery space contains a layout of pathways that become layered and visually complicated. This visual queue signifies overwhelming issues of the social and economic systems that shape communities and leads the audience to consider the issues of class and race that lie beneath capitalist systems.
The pathways and shapes are syncopated around the gallery in addition to a relief fence that is installed on the wall appearing in struggle, pulling away from it, the chain link is bent and misshapen. These systems fashion a relational experience of life walking through the intimate experiences of spaces in Chicago coming from home to neighborhood to school.