SARAH BEDNAREK | Reclining
Terrorists
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Reclining Terrorists, 1/2005, 90in x 36in x 36in, used sofa,
hand screen printed fabric featuring American terrorists and
terrorist groups (such as Ted Kaczynski and the KKK)
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I often romanticize freedom fighters. It seems
so noble and heroic. However, this implies blindness to the atrocities
committed in the name of freedom (whatever that is). In this work
I was attempting to criticize my own blindness.
This is a couch upholstered in fabric I altered,
based on Waverly’s "Country
Life." Normally the manufactured toile depicts genre scenes of happy
peasants going about their leisure. I removed the peasants and replaced them
with American
terrorists and terrorist groups. There are, for example, Black Panthers and
the KKK, the Unabomber and Patti Hearst, the Michigan Militia and the Weather
Underground.
Putting the fabric back into a domestic setting
reminds me that there is no
romantic "other
place" nor "other people" who engage in the struggle for
self-determination. It is here and now, though most of the time I do not
agree with the aims
or tactics employed by these groups and individuals.
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