Sense of Government---1996
Project Site:
California Tower---Riverside, California
Funded by:
The Riverside Arts Foundation
This installation incorporates the quotations of local children--their ideas of what government is -child-like beliefs inscribed on ephemeral acrylic panels which literally support a massive I-beam overhead. This metaphoric structure, with individual suspended letters forming thematic clues -Regime, Authority, Legality, Protector, Order- suggests an industrial process, symbolizing government as a large-scale system.
The intended audience is the general public, people who interact personally with government out of necessity. It implies a questioning of government, along with a great deal of amazement that this ponderous system manages to levitate, held aloft by our fragile beliefs.
Its power flows from the authorial voice of the children--inscribed in the public arena-expressing wisdom, skepticism, and fears. It will be intriguing for the children, as they age, to consider their former selves, their words memorialized for the ages.
Constructed of plexiglass, waterjet-cut aluminum, and aluminum structural forms.