A number of years a go I became enraged listening to a public radio news commentary program describing the output of garment workers as “unskilled labour”. The commentator likely meant well, but had he ever taken the time to inspect his collar and cuffs and contemplate the exquisite dexterity that went into the production of his shirt?
 
The kind of bias that allows us to admire the skill of a radio host (while he manifestly misunderstands the premise of his argument) while discounting the acute abilities of a garment worker can only be informed by a history of colonization, war capitalism, state capitalism and racism.
 
The sewing machine, particularly the classic black “Singer”, is an exemplar of the machine era. It is beautiful, substantial and functionally marvelous but its presence, influence and history is not benign. The mechanization of the textile industry concentrated labour, transforming the subsistence agrarian populations on many continents into a landless proletariat, leading to exploitation coerced labour, enslavement and the transportation of enslaved people.
 
The industrialists in the heat of the Industrial Revolution understood that due to technological advancement, their machines would be redundant in as little as three years. In order to justify their investment, they would have to run their machines day and night, which led to 24-hour shift work (which is in itself inhumane), the labour shortage that ensued, precipitated an explosion in child labour in Europe as well as fostering the dehumanizing notion that people are inferior to capital.
 
A notable illustration of this devaluation of human life was the 1911 fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, New York City’s deadliest industrial disaster claiming the lives of 146 garment workers, mostly recent immigrants between ages 16-23, many of whom jumped to their deaths because the exits were locked to prevent theft and unauthorized breaks.
 
In Bangladesh in 2013, Rana Plaza collapsed, killing 1134 garment workers. The building had been declared unsafe. Banks and stores in the plaza were closed, but the 5000 garment workers were threatened with termination if the did not show up for work.
 
As consumers, we are at least culpable in this continuing tragedy
 

“one hundred years without progress” 2022 (installation) antique sewing machines, fabric, thread, leather, rope, hardware. Varying dimensions
 
The work was included in a show at the Baltimore Museum of Art, but it was clear that they could not accommodate the performative aspect of the piece. I installed it as static installation
 
I was interested in how the meaning would change or persist without the dynamism of performance or with the change in environment from an industrial space to a polished museum interior

surplus/shortage, 2023  Varying dimensions (suspended object: 12x13x75”) wood, rope, leather, hardware
 
61 carved wooden spoons and rigging
 
Of all the utensils that attend the preparation, serving and consumption of food, the spoon is the most intimate, pushing beyond the barrier of lips and teeth, entering the cavity of the mouth in order to deliver its contents. It is also universal, whichever utensils are culturally or personally favored, the spoon is invariably included.
 
It is remarkable how easily food is transformed from the necessity    of nutrition into a means of exchange, a threat or a weapon. As a commodity, the market is interested in quantity with little or no attention to how nutritious, fragrant or delicious the food may be. Prices are determined by demand, profits may be extracted from distortions or imbalances in demand and supply.
 
An international commodity market leads inevitably to “rationalized” production, concentration and reliance on particular growing regions, agri-business, precipitating monoculture, soil depletion and labour exploitation. 
 
Transnational corporations further degrade biodiversity, developing and patenting grains and seeds that work exclusively with proprietary herbicides and fertilizers. The rationale, according to their public relations professionals, is that all this is necessary to feed the Earth and its people, this ignores the fact that one third of annual global food production goes to waste. Hunger is a result of ineffective distribution rather than production. The patent is a technology for hoarding intellectual “property” and certainly not a means of food distribution.

We cannot ignore the use of arable land for cultivating non-food crops such as cotton, corn-syrup and bio-fuels. These pressures squeeze out sustainable and subsistence farming methods, creating regional food shortages, inequality and promoting labour exploitation as the Earth and its people need nutritional food and humane working and living conditions.        
 

Compound Balance consists of 2 sturdy bags. One contains a bound person and the other, a counterweight filled with sand that escapes in a slow trickle from a funnel in the bottom of the bag. Both bags are suspended by a balance mechanism with a lever that favours the counterweight bag. The bag containing the person closed by a scissor mechanism that stays locked under tension. As long as there is sufficient mass in the counterweight, the person remains locked and suspended in the bag and must wait for enough sand to escape in order to equalize the weight and release the lock.

"don't need no hero",  2019. fabric, felt, leather, steel, hardware, industrial blower & me

As my work became more complex with multiple participants, my role in the performances changed from subject to orchestrator, I wanted to get back to a simple act where I would be the (subject) person facing the dilemma.
 
I devised a machine, which would provide me with ample air, the most basic need but totally restrict movement, preventing sight while the noise of the air supply would prevent me from hearing anything outside the machine. The device was locked closed by means of steel cables, which terminated in 3 padlocks, all of which would have to be unlocked in order to release me.
 
I mailed the keys for the locks to three people who had been subjects in previous pieces with instructions to attend the show and unlock their padlock when they felt it was right for them.

In recent work I have investigated, illustrated and attempted to explain intersecting
matters of threat, risk, punishment, power imbalances, hierarchies, agency and everyday
brutality. My work consists largely of sculpture-based performance or performancebased
sculpture. I also exhibit drawings and smaller objects and object based
installations.
I propose a balance mechanism that uses the mass, volume and restricted flow of water
as a kind if time-lock mechanism that counterbalances a person with a drum of fluid
The apparatus comprises a base supporting a vertical element equipped with several
pivot points that support a series of parallel levers. The levers support on the one end, a
polypropylene drum with a capacity of 30 gallons and on the other end a hoist with
harness, into which a human subject may be strapped
Once the subject is strapped into the harness, water is pumped into the drum from a
reservoir tank, which counterbalances the subject hoisting them off the ground. Once
hoisted the subject is locked into the harness and cannot be removed.
The subject is strapped into the harness, water is pumped into the drum from a reservoir
tank, causing the drum to descend and hoisting the counterbalanced subject off the
ground. Once hoisted the subject is locked into the harness by the tension of the hoist
and cannot be removed.
Once the drum is full a slow drain is activated and the begins to flow, return to the
reservoir which act as a kind of time lock, as the barrel empties and rises, the human
subject is slowly lowered to the ground. When the tension on the harness is neutralized
the person may be released from the harness.