Obituaries of The American Dream
-2020-2021
ESTAMOS BIEN: LA TRIENAL 20/21, El Museo del Barrio, NY. 2021Obituaries of The American Dream is a participatory project that questions the ideal of individualism which is central to the American Dream. Participants were invited to share when and how the American Dream died for them. I designed their responses to take the form of obituaries. Then I placed the obituaries into an original newsprint along with essays, speeches, artists’ interventions, book reviews, and other written contributions that explore the origins and impact of individualism..
The “American dream” is the globally proliferated belief that all individuals, regardless of origin, can achieve upward class mobility through hard work. As coined by James Truslow Adams in The Epic America (1931), “all [individuals] should have access to this opportunity according to ability or achievement.” However, the “American dream” negates the United States’s legacy of chattel enslavement, structural racism, and patriarchy. Obituaries of The American Dream reveals how this belief is harmfully rooted in the prioritization of individual wealth instead of community well-being.
Curators: Rodrigo Moura, Susanna Temkin, and Elia Alba
The “American dream” is the globally proliferated belief that all individuals, regardless of origin, can achieve upward class mobility through hard work. As coined by James Truslow Adams in The Epic America (1931), “all [individuals] should have access to this opportunity according to ability or achievement.” However, the “American dream” negates the United States’s legacy of chattel enslavement, structural racism, and patriarchy. Obituaries of The American Dream reveals how this belief is harmfully rooted in the prioritization of individual wealth instead of community well-being.
Curators: Rodrigo Moura, Susanna Temkin, and Elia Alba
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Newsprint detail view. ESTAMOS BIEN: LA TRIENAL 20/21, El Museo del Barrio, NY. 2021
Mentioned in:
Dazed Magazine
August 20th, 2020This art project asks people about the day the American Dream died for them
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August 20th, 2020This art project asks people about the day the American Dream died for them
Read more ︎︎︎
Hyperallergic
October 19th, 202Mourning the Death of the American Dream
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October 19th, 202Mourning the Death of the American Dream
Read more ︎︎︎
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