Portfolio > Homeland Security

Enflamed
Airport confiscated lighters on wood panel
2026
Encirclement
60" x 60" x 8"
2021
Untitled
Airport Confiscated Razors, enamel on wood
18" x 18"
2011
Red, White and Black
Airport Confiscated Razors on wood
11" x 15"
2011
United States of America
Razor Blades, Enamel, Plexi
2008
Homeland Security
Airport Confiscated Knives, acrylic and wood
2004
US Dollar
Wood, enamel, confiscated razor blades
2007
Untitled (Matchbook Heart)
Matchbooks on wood panel
20" x 18"
2005
Fear Culture
Mixed
66" x 80"
2007
Red Cross
Mixed Media
2006
American Target
24 3/4 x 23 1/2 inches
2007
Untitled (Blue)
Confiscated lighters on wood
2003

Following 9/11 in 2001 I started gathering confiscated items from security checkpoints at San Francisco International Airport, in order to express visually how many of our everyday routines have been disrupted since 9/11.

The objects lend themselves to interpretations that resonate with the viewer's own personal experience. In part, I choose to see those objects as representing an arbitrary intrusion of disorder and all that is now lost and unrecoverable.

Moreover, the diverse array of assembled "dangerous" items may be regarded as the cultural residue of a particular moment in history. The fine text on the matchboxes, corkscrews, and other items is suggestive of the complex geography of that moment, of people and commodities coming into conjuncture with one another.

Seeing these ordinary objects, most of them so seemingly harmless, as imbued with the potential for danger may make us laugh, as well as make us angry. The complexity of our response echoes the objects themselves: each small tool, like each of us, bears some of the weight of a changed world.