BOOTLICKER SALVED ISLAND CLOUDS

2028 -2029

In a gallery space, 40 pairs of porcelain cast military boots (cast from a pair of 1967 full black leather combat boots) filled with dried Leonurus cardiaca (motherwort) will create a grid for myself and a mixed-breed Sato dog from Puerto Rico to move amongst the space in four-hour durations of time. Bootlicker Salved Island Clouds references militarization as an intricately woven cultural aspect of caste systems and hierarchical structures that are amplified by seemingly absurd and innocuous behaviors.

40 boots represents the average low-end size of a platoon.

On loop, is a recitation of every breed of dog from a dog encyclopedia.

In the middle of the room is a porcelain replica of a small blue and white Corelle brand plate (replica based on a model from the 1980s).

The four-hour walks between dog and human will become a choreography for dancers in a future ballet. The score for the ballet will be an interpretation of domesticated dog sounds.

The Leonurus cardiaca will be made into tinctures and glycerites and offered for visitors to take home after the ballet.

*** This project is anti-imperialist in its scope. It is about borderless-ness as both possibility and process. The work and research insists that the notion of monument and nationalism begin as personal construction first, and then manifests as a collective phenomena.