Objectified Earth Series (critiquing the grid)

The grid has long been a means to divide and objectify the land we live on. Through the use of longitude and latitude western cultures navigated and ruthlessly colonized the world. The grid also appears in so many other aspects of our human activity, our games, fashion and architecture. It is unique to our species to subdivide quadrilaterally. There is something both reassuring and disturbing about a grid.

I have always been fascinated with maps, especially the relief maps that are common on elementary school walls and in library resource rooms. I love running my fingers over the high mountains and imagining what they would look like if I were to cut the landscape like a sheet cake. Maps operate as metaphor for our capitalistic gaze. We use them to plan, cut, dissect and exploit the planet. They are very real representations of the perversity of property. This new series plays with the beauty and ugliness of quadrilateral division.