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Swarm
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Swarm, 1991, Pleiades gallery, 4’ x 4’x10’, wood, metal, strings, paper planes

This mobile installation was created in response to the Persian Gulf War and commemorates the first American carpet-bombing attack on Iraq. It explores a variety of moral, ethical, and socio-political issues as well as codes and preoccupations, ranging from the role of the mass media to the possibility of war and it’s anti-ecological nature.  The artist attempts to echo intellectual concern with the fate of morals in an increasingly diverse world.

The mobile reflects on visual images from the dramatic finale of the Gulf’s war. Hundreds of white paper planes rotate around the strings as a flock of innocent doves and provoke an unusual sensation of sublime. The planes connected by the piercing strings are attached to the black cross, positioned high above the viewer and shaped as a marionette handle. This means to remind the viewer of the grand puppeteer who controls the performance in which a plane, a contemporary means of transportation, can bring death and destruction to the ground below.

In the age of media bombardment, the artist questions the possibility of simultaneous respect of cultures with diverse beliefs and ethics and their ability to coexist in a progressively borderless world. She tries to encompass the difficult problem of recognizing the sovereignty of other states and peoples while still exercising the moral responsibility to punish the intolerable, a problem of justice that confronts every nation as well as every individual.