Installations are site specific works that are large enough to walk in and around.

This installation was commissioned by Haymarket People's Fund, a foundation for social change, to commemorate their 25th anniversary. It illustrates their funding history from 1974 to 1999, giving to community grass roots organizations that are often responding to issues ad hoc.

"The Harbor at Haymarket: 25 Years"

What you see is a panoramic photograph; the series of panels on the left has local historic events on the top, what Haymarket was funding in the middle (boats in the river), and national and international events on the bottom.

The boats on the right each represent one of their issue areas: environment, economic justice, peace efforts, anti-nuclear useage, human rights (anti-racial, women's, elderly, gay/lesbian, disability, prisoner), health care, worker rights, and support of research programs.

detail shot of one of the panels, the years 1974-79

The quotes are from activists engaged at the time talking about their fights in different issues.

click here for a QuickTime panoramic movie of the installation

Chicago Artist Residency through Urban Gateways at
Disney Magnet School

In 2000 I created a barrack and a 25' x 40' site to recreate the Japanese American internment camp experience for 4th to 8th graders. We had an "enactment day" where the children donned tags and became a numbered identity, walked "under guard" to the camp, made their bedding by stuffing sacks with hay, explored a jail room, and looked for text from former internees by digging around in a sand area.

The intent was to give kids an experience of what harsh treatment is like that hopefully will soften any tendencies to condemn other groups of people on the basis of their physical or ethnic characteristics; tolerance was the overarching theme.

looking through a barrack window; text on right is a quote from an internee: "Nobody is going to make me feel this miserable. I'm going to prevail, my will is going to prevail, my own life will prevail." Picture below it was from a photograph taken during the war. The masks on the left have id tags with the number given to each family that was interned.

I asked each child to write a question they would ask a former internee; these are the colored cards pinned to the wall of the barrack above the piles of hay used to make their bedding.

kids digging for internee's thoughts written about the internment