work
All the poets
All the poets I’ve ever (we could have ever) loved
Todos los poetas que he (podría haber) amado/ All the poets I’ve ever (we could have ever) loved
Developed in response to the millions of missing, murdered, and disappeared persons in Guatemala, and in response to the systematic indoctrination of children into violence during armed conflict. A traditional child’s toy (a spinning top that resembles a grenade), dipped in spices and placed on banana paper.
2017.
Photos: Adɐm Johnson
Trenzando (Braiding)
Trenzando (Braiding)
cotton thread, plywood, Guatemalan quetzales, U.S. dollars
Nodding towards the long, violent links between U.S. and Guatemalan histories, and the economics of genocide. Traditional weaving braids, reminiscent of human hair, are organized in a grid of twenty (and balanced on wooden supports. In the Mayan system of numbers, twenty is one of the numbers that is commonly used to represent “a body.”
2017.
Photos: Adɐm Johnson
Tightrope practice
Tightrope practice, U.S./Latin-american relations
Tightrope Practice (U.S. -Latin American relations)
plywood, 2017.
Photos: Adɐm Johnson
The Coordinates
The coordinates
Las Coordenadas / The Coordinates, or, markers for 26 of the 440 Mayan villages destroyed during the Guatemalan “anti-communist” genocide, funded in part by the United States, between 1960-1996
plaster casts, maple shelf, hand-written texts on newsprint
2017, 2021.
Photos: Adɐm Johnson
Juego de azar
Juego de azar/ game of chance
Juego de azar/ game of chance
Wooden trompos (spinning tops) engraved with Hugo Gordillo’s poem of the same name.
2017.
Photo: Adɐm Johnson
Prisa de héroes
Prisa de heroes/ a rush of heroes
Prisa de héroes/ a rush of heroes
Sound poem, audio installation. Prisa was developed by translating Hugo Gordillo's poem, Prisa de Héroes into musical notes. The poem wonders why aging war criminals are dying before they can be brought to justice. In collaboration with Hugo Gordillo (original text), Maya Ablao (audio engineer), Sarah Calvert (audio engineer), Andrew Groenler (bass)2018.
As if there was swine fever.
The criminals of my people
Have given to the task
Of dying one after another.
Why do they not go more slowly?
Maybe because they were gangsters,
Hand-to-hand evaders,
Devotees of advantage and treachery.
They are buried without a chapel.
The wake rushes by
Before the court appears
On their "heroic" past.
How much they veiled in this life
And how guarded in the next,
Their souls will not pass
The smallest luminol test.
Como que hay fiebre porcina.
Los criminales de mi pueblo
Se han dado a la tarea
De morirse uno tras otro.
¿Por qué no se van espaciadamente?
Quizás porque fueron montoneros,
Evasores del cuerpo a cuerpo,
Devotos de la ventaja y la alevosía.
Los entierran sin capilla.
No vaya a ser que al velatorio
Les llegue la cita judicial
Para revisar su pasado “heroico.”
Cuánto velaron en esta vida
Y cuánto velarán en la siguiente,
Porque sus almas tampoco pasarán
La prueba mínima del luminol.
Seguridad nacional
Nacional security
Seguridad nacional/ national security
400 engraved limes.
In collaboration with Hugo Gordillo. Seguridad nacional uses the text from his poem by the same name. The poem explains how genocide is supported by removing resources, so that community members turn on one another.
2017.
Photos: Adɐm Johnson
The sleep sack (and other stories)
the sleep sack (and other stories)
cotton, polyester, rope, and batting.
a method for encountering the environment, and for way-finding.
2013-ongoing
Photos: R. Eric Stone
or best offer
o.b.o
Silent auction of native oak trees on the campus of the Iowa Lakeside Lab, a biological field station - exploring the values we assign to landscapes.
2013
Photo: R. Eric Stone