Ring in the case of Complaint, 2019
Engraved sign, glazed stoneware, steel, thread.
Incinerator Art Award Peoples Choice Award Recipient
Ring in the case of Complaint questions when and how our agency to complain (and protest) is limited socially and politically, addressing how deviation beyond these barriers is made difficult. The persistent and collective act of deviation results in an easing of the effort required to survive in a resistive environment.
Deceptive devices which present the promise of support are often installed without structures for response or resolution. Ring in the case of Complaint is an edition within an ongoing project, critiquing and queering these devices in order to re-appropriate iconographic tropes present in the propaganda of oppressive hierarchical systems as articles of rebellion.
Feminist writer and independent scholar Sara Ahmed posits that, “Even complaints that do not seem to get anywhere can lead us to each other” (‘What’s the Use?’ 2019). As the action to complain is taken and the bell is rung, the absence of a ‘clapper’ means that no chime sounds. The shared action is amplified in the absence of an immediate outcome.
zamara zamara, At your service, 2019; earthenware, glaze, steel, embroidery thread, fabric, screws; test video of bell being wrung, 13”.
Work installed at Dirty Dozen as part of the group exhibition Layers in May 2019.
This was the first iteration of this series of work.