Rec-elections (This is America)
2020
silkscreen on mirrored mylar
15 x 24.5 inches
Installation view, Standard Space Gallery, Sharon, CT
Rec-elections (This is America) is a reimagining of a Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew campaign flag from 1968 that featured a
silk-screened American flag and the candidates names on mirrored mylar. With the candidates names stripped away, this mirror
from 1968 has returned to reflect our current moment back to us. This is America.
Rec-elections is an ongoing project (2012-) which unpacks and critiques the weaponization of nostalgia and slogans used within historical American presidential campaign posters. The etymology of the word “slogan” derives from Gaelic origins and effectively means “battle cry”. Sourced from online auction sites such as eBay, I alter and reimagine, these presidential campaign posters, banners, and flags and reinsert them back into the public realm where they are utilized in, site-specific interventions and performances, prints, flags and installations.
Within this framework, works from the Rec-elections project resurrect the language of bygone slogans to reveal the fallacy of a romanticized American myth of equality, justice, and prosperity for all.