“National Treasure” is a shipping crate containing a
portrait room from Anilife, a place inhabited by stuffed
toy animals. The room has been forcefully taken in a
regional dispute, acquired by a kingdom, seized in a
revolution, captured by a military authority, and now
dropped onto the streets of cities to be shared, viewed,
and consumed by humans unfamiliar with this foreign
cultural artifact.
This installation is a statement on how cultures become
objectified and turned into commodities, divorced from
their original context and valued for their parts regardless
of origin, history, or cultural value.
These circumstances are paralleled in the creation and
sale of each element that makes up the piece. I have
constructed and fabricated every part of the crate,
including all of the furnishings and paintings, for the sole
purpose of creating the installation. The concept becomes
actualized once its individual parts get scattered through
the process of being sold. Individual pieces find homes in
new, unrelated settings and, in time, their origins are
ultimately forgotten.
Art is removed from one culture and taken into another.
This assimilation is the culture that emerges
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