Born to be Bored, 2018
The sculptural objects from Born to be Bored, live in the YES Resort. It is a job resort in a near future reality of Atlantic City, New Jersey which has been renamed Atlantic in a corporatized America called US Land. No longer the Atlantic City with an economy based on gaming, the revitalized city looks to progressive values such as sustainability and economic empowerment to promote productive fun. At the YES Resort, jobs are the respite that the many unemployed or underemployed citizens of US Land seek. The resort feeds on collective sentiments of nostalgia for a “golden age”, but has exacerbated isolation in the name of specificity and individualism.
The work responds satirically to an ever increasing boring experienced by modern society; a hole, an emptying, a longing. It is a negotiation of nostalgic and sterile definitions of ‘American-ness’ as they relate to the current socio-political climate. Whether looking backward or forward, Born to be Bored encourages a look around, a look through; a time for reflection on how we as individuals and as a society affect each other and our environments.
