“Alex Strada & Tali Keren: Proposal for a 28th Amendment? Is it Possible to Amend an Unequal System?”
YoU Exhibition
October 2, 2021
With this incomplete participatory installation,Year of Uncertainty Artists-In-Residence Alex Strada and Tali Keren ask visitors to critically engage with the U.S. Constitution and pose two questions: What 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution would you propose? And: Do you think it is possible to amend an unequal system? Opening with the phrase “We the People,” the Constitution was written in 1787 by and for wealthy white male property owners, and to date, only 27 amendments have been ratified to change the document. This legacy and the embedded issues of structural racism, settler-colonial violence, heteropatriarchy, and labor inequities are illuminated here in videos featuring legal scholars.
Central to the installation are sonic soapbox sculptures that build upon the history of the soapbox as a site of collective struggle, while also emphasizing listening, mutuality, and access. These objects emit an in-progress oral archive of responses to the project’s questions that have been recorded by visitors and will accrue over the course of the exhibition. Visitors are invited to engage by listening and by using the recording booth to add to this work.
The installation is activated through a series of public workshops Strada and Keren planned with Year of Uncertainty community partners and legal scholars. These gatherings bring people together to collectively consider, question, and debate systemic repair, radical change, and abolition to imagine more equitable futures.
Image Description: Five colorful banners hang from the ceiling reading “Proposal for a 28th Amendment?” And “Is it possible to amend an unequal system?” in the five most spoken languages in Corona, NY. Below the banners, four visitors stand and lay on the five wooden colorful soapboxes in different arrangements.
Image Description: Three colorful banners hang from the ceiling reading “Proposal for a 28th Amendment?” And “Is it possible to amend an unequal system?” In Korean, English, and Bengali.
Image Description: Three colorful banners hang from the ceiling reading “Proposal for a 28th Amendment?” And “Is it possible to amend an unequal system?” In Korean, English, and Bengali. Below the banners are five colorful wooden soap boxes with headphones hanging off them. A visitor sits on the closest soapbox in the image with a pair of headphones on.
Image Description: In the center, a visitor is standing in a wooden rectangular recording booth with a black curtain split open. On the wall, to the left of the recording booth reads “Recording Booth”.
Image Description: Aerial view of five colorful banners hanging from the ceiling reading “Proposal for a 28th Amendment?” And “Is it possible to amend an unequal system?” in the five most spoken languages in Corona, NY. Below the banners, are four wooden colorful soapboxes in different arrangements.
Image Description: Three tv’s turned vertically hang on the wall with still images of videos explaining the amendments of the U S constitution. Two headphones hang from the bottom right of the left and middle TV. Three black folding chairs are placed in front of the TV’s with a visitor sitting in the on the right seat with a pair of headphones on.
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