I Hope This Helps, 2020
Ink and acrylic on cloth, wire, brackets, 20 pieces, 2m x 1.25m each.
This work has so far been featured in three exhibitions: “Cinque Mostre: Convergence,” the American Academy in Rome, 2020;
“I Hope This Helps,” The Africa Center NYC, 2024; and “I Hope This Helps,” Michigan State University Poetry Center, 2025.
Standard:
[heraldry] a long, tapering flag or ensign, as of a monarch or a nation
a form of language widely accepted as the usual form
a rule or principle used as a basis for judgment
an upright support or supporting part
a distinct petal, larger than the rest
a vexillum
These 20 Standards each herald a moment of sight or of blindness, a call for help, an offer of assistance, an insistence. Built to take the place of the artist's body in performance, the poem's place within the pages of a book, and the conversations we too often relegate to therapy or theory, these Standards instead invite the experiencer's body to step into the work itself.
Sound and space guide experiencers down different avenues than expected as each Standard is met. I Hope This Helps represents the aural qualities of poetry and the sound of the artist's voice through the trickle of the neighboring fountains and the flap of each Standard in the wind. These interactions—body, nature, text, handprint, fabric, movement–work to light the world as it is built and the body as it responds to that built environment.
The Standards challenge experiencers to engage controversial issues and erosive emotions outside of more limiting "standard" frameworks. Consider, for example, a concept such as "racist" not as identity or character trait but as inescapable cultural inheritance that can be identified and unlearned. If the opposite of "racist" shifts from "not racist" to "antiracist" then the standard shifts from judgment to action.
As we move through each Standard, they too move and shift, each an invitation and a welcome toward mutual understanding, movement, and change.
