Pull Yourself Up By The BOOtstraps
This fortune teller artist book structure functions as a game one can never win, as is the reality of the cycle of poverty. The viewer first chooses a number or set of words from the lottery ticket imagery to count. They then must choose one of the "solutions" to escaping poverty. These are sets of false solutions often offered by conservative ideologies where an impoverished person should just "get a better job" or "don't drink coffee for a week" for example. Once the viewer chooses a solution, they open it to unveil the realities of an impoverished life, where these solutions are not the end all be all to the fixing the already established systems of poverty, or they simply are not possible given the structure of jobs and financial education and opportunity in America. People who have not experienced financial instability or living paycheck-to-paycheck offer idealistic solutions from a place of misunderstanding of how poverty is not an individualistic problem, but more an inevitable consequence of the system.
2022
artist book: screenprint on hosho professional white paper, found wallets
