2021

Created specifically for Exposed at The Current in Stowe, Vermont, these 3 gold-colored newspaper distribution boxes seek to subvert language found in the public space through their placement in different sites around Stowe including Main Street and the Rec Path. Each box is filled with a stack of posters that feature various questions drawn from criminal court proceedings coupled with statistics about ubiquitousness of guilty pleas in U.S. courts. The questions, posed by judges to defendants, are sourced from pleas in which I have participated as a court-certified Spanish interpreter in Boston. Taking cues from the work of Félix González Torres, the public is welcome to take posters and share them as they wish. By recontextualizing the question and answer dynamic of the courtroom and circulating it into the public space through a container traditionally reserved for commercial purposes, I hope to not only stimulate a dialogue about the reach of the carceral state, but also invite a heightened awareness of the power of the language.