States of Uncertainty
2012
Throughout the world there are a number of places that aren’t included on standard political maps but that continue to function as political entities. They hold elections, use currencies, run factories—and, technically, don’t exist. These breakaway states, micro-nation projects, and ostensibly autonomous regions form out of civil wars, colonial rule, deeply entrenched ethnonationalist enmities, and, on occasion, simply because of the strong-headedness of the individuals who desire independence. The unrecognized state is a place of uneasy suspension, revealing nationhood to be not a fixed position but a place in a perpetual process of becoming.
These are images from an installation at Space 1026 in Philadelphia, PA, in 2012.
