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Project 07

America: Polarizingly United

Year
2023
Medium
Installation of nine archival pigment prints on aluminum composite panels: two at 90 × 60 cm and seven at 45 × 30 cm
Location
New York County Supreme Court, Manhattan
Photographed
April 4, 2023
Installation rendering with three supporting prints to the left, a large central diptych, and four supporting prints to the right beneath museum track lighting.

Photographed as Donald Trump appeared for his arraignment, the series moves through supporters, opponents, reporters, spectators, and performers outside the courthouse. One Trump supporter repeatedly enters charged exchanges across the crowd; at the most tense confrontation, both participants accept a chant of 'Kiss, kiss, kiss,' and one kisses the other's Trump hat. The laughter breaks the tension and the gathering disperses.

Two men face each other closely in a crowd; one wears a Trump cap, while others watch and film.
A man kisses the side of another man's Trump cap as they pose closely on a city sidewalk.
Young woman and man in Trump cap face each other in a crowded city scene, hands raised between them.
Man with gold glasses speaks into a white phone handset in a dense outdoor crowd.
Man in a suit films his reflection through metal bars with a phone on a city sidewalk.
Man in Trump cap reaches toward a small dog held by a person with a cardboard sign in a crowded street scene.
Person in orange outfit and blond mask faces metal bars; masked person with backpack stands nearby.
Person in orange outfit and Trump mask stands by metal bars while another person films with a phone.
Trump mask points toward the camera beside a cardboard sign reading “Arrest Trump $10.”
America: Polarizingly United locates political polarization within the theatrical conditions surrounding Donald Trump's arraignment. Supporters, opponents, reporters, costumes, cameras, masks, and improvised performances occupy the same compressed street. Heightened color draws bodies and political props into one charged visual field. At the crowd's most tense confrontation, two opponents accept an absurd prompt from the people around them; one kisses the other's Trump hat, laughter breaks the tension, and the gathering disperses. The same public theatre that gives the conflict its intensity also provides its ending.