violators.mov (2019)
Edition of 5 artist's books, custom pedestal, filing cabinet
~6' x ~2" x ~4"

In 2006, a resident of Chicago filed a complaint to their alderman about a series of fire hydrant openings on their block. Their letter, vitriolic as it was, was consigned to a filing cabinet which in turn was abandoned when the alderman moved on to other accommodations. In 2019, as part of an installation in the that once-abandoned building, violators.mov re-presented the letter and frames from an accompanying video file as a flipbook. Each page is also a tearable postcard, daring the viewer into complicity in all the transgressions that stacked up in the history of this piece. The work explores the rhetoric of petty complaint, the governing aesthetics of bureaucracy, and a decades-long push for social justice centered on fire hydrants across the city.

You can download a pdf copy of the book here.