In a world where so many of our communications are online and surveilled, what does confidential and authentic communication look like? How can we be real with those we love when it feels like everyone is watching? Expanding surveillance technologies - like cctv, Ring doorbells, programs like Project Greenlight in Detroit, video calls, and the constant data mining we’re all subject to - provoke our paranoias and limit our ability to let our guard down. There is tension in wanting to be seen and loved for who we are, even through the screen, and needing to maintain our privacy and safety. When every text message is recorded and the robot stereo reacts to a whisper, to what lengths do we have to go to share our most personal and radical thoughts with those we trust? Can we still keep secrets?
Yard Signs is a series of hand-woven, text based sculptures I began in 2020 which examine the effects of surveillance culture on interpersonal and community relationships. Made of woven double cloth cotton and steel frames, the yard signs aim to intimately communicate with another by hiding in plain sight, using the form of a public advertisement to convey an urgent private message.