indexing my monologue

translations (on evidence, untranslatable futures, and other drawings) III, 2020

translations (on evidence, untranslatable futures, and other drawings) III, 2020
graphite on wall, etched latex, etched silicone, pins, pigment paper, aluminum frame

translations (on evidence, untranslatable futures, and other drawings) III, 2020
UV curing on mirrored dibond, pigment paper, aluminum frame

INDEXING MY MONOLOGUE, 2020
7 mins 25 secs, mdf, silence, mirror

INDEXING MY MONOLOGUE, 2020, video excerpt

INDEXING MY MONOLOGUE is a single-channel, silent video that indexes a disparate monologue about language, and its relation to history, bureaucracy, and immigration. The video centers around a historic moment where language and institutionalized rituals intersect to control diasporic tongues and bodies -- the melting pot ceremony at the first ESL school in America, the Ford English School in 1917. The work merges various sources such as EFL/ESL pedagogy, immigration history, bureaucratic watermarks for certificates and documents with redactions of books on language from my own library. Blurring lineages of pedagogy, history, regulation, and literature, INDEXING MY MONOLOGUE translates them into concrete poetry, abstractions, and imagined bibliographies.