The title, Trying, comes from my Artist Statement (since 2010), that in turn comes from my text for Faceless Portrait, 2007.

The exhibition is about the continuation of a variety of struggles in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles, from irrational political actions to a global pandemic. The work consists of my text (written mostly in spring of 2019) and recycling prints into objects and having them be containers for handcrafted nature. I made these prints when I was Artist in Residence in the office of Ross Barkan's campaign for State Senator (that subsequently turned into a short-lived community space, Solidarity Space, 2018-2019 - see Political Office, 2018-2019).

Public Zoom opening with gallerist Jeannine Bardo and curator Valeria Federici (participating from Rome), during pandemic, anti-racist demonstrations and curfew - moderated by Doug Chapman of Turnstile Tours and live support by Isabelle Garbani and Elena Soterakis.

I dispersed my text throughout the gallery space - from two large scrolls to one sentence on a pencil: "We spend our days repairing, under the indifferent sun."

Gallery layout: I named each of the walls and created a "shop" in the room that usually functions as a bar for openings.

"KILL PAIN" is the only text in exhibition that is not my own; I saw it on the window of the El in Chicago, going to a friend's memorial service in January, 2017. It reminded me of Buddhist cognitive instructions: start off with premise of pain and then integrate skills/actions to combat suffering.

Excerpts from core text, along with fragments of the recycled photographs.

Framing of core text as a grid, along with images of birds I saw during Women's March, DC, January, 2017; I made these images look like forest fires, as the 2020 Australian forest fires were raging when I was making them.

Postcards with double sided printing of entire core text. I discovered that one side contained misplaced text after I received cards from printing company, and I fixed this by hand instead of re-ordering cards.

Excerpt from my Trying text written on wallpaper above my photo in restroom at Stand.

In addition to making work for the gallery, I also organized a collaboration for the gallery garden with SAFE (assistance to people who are asylum seekers due to gender identity and sexual orientation) to make a SAFE Asylum Wall. SAFE asked its community of asylum seekers and asylees to respond with an image to the following question: "What does Pride mean to you?" I had access to these images (19 total), as well as the text that accompanied some of the submissions; I converted the small files into large black & white images that I printed and then hand colored part of each image.

Jeannine Bardo, helping me install the SAFE prints in the Stand Garden.