THE UTOPIAN DILEMMA
I explore connections between photography and sculpture by investigating the object and its materiality, while commenting on the potential for recycling. These photographs document objects collected during walks around my neighborhood. I chose aluminum because it endures as a visible emblem of the traces of consumer products that mark our environment. Aluminum forms are reclaimed, molded into a new sculptural structure, and presented in these photographs as an idealized, yet absurd comment on the possibilities for reuse. My sculptures are bound with tape, which adds tension and foregrounds their transitional status.

As we confront our contemporary existence, our desire for convenience and embrace of consumerism, we find ourselves faced with a Utopian Dilemma. The euphoria of modernism, with its promise of an elevated standard of living achieved through the availability of affordable mass-produced goods, has been replaced by an anxiety aligned with twenty-first century concerns regarding sustainability. We consider Utopia to be an idyllic place: freedom from want in a land of plenty. I strive to transform the discarded by inverting our value system, inspired by Thomas More’s sixteenth century story of Utopia. I turn trash into treasure with the hope to prompt changes in social behavior.