Be a place unmoved (Hongisto’s hammer)

(The future needs new plans series)
paper sculpture with tar paper, construction signage, start-up brochures, Riso & toner transfer prints, metallic paper, paper thread, and paper pulp with burnt wood
31″ x 6″ x 4″
2016

(Also see Ground for another project exploring Sheriff Hongisto’s sledgehammer.)

Be a place unmoved (Hongisto’s hammer) is a transmuted version of the sledgehammer Sheriff Richard Hongisto was photographed wielding in knocking down a tenant’s door during the eviction of the I-Hotel on August 3, 1977. Here it is rendered unusable as a tool of displacement and dismantling, now reimagined as a kind of ward against forgetting and community harm. The piece is part of The future needs new plans series, a set of talismanic paper sculptures honoring the community histories and spaces that surround and intersect my life and work. The objects and the accreted layers of material reference historic sociopolitical movements, moments of cross cultural solidarity, and current community struggles (including moments where past coalitions have faltered). These are wayfinding devices of a sort, objects that focus and call upon the intersection of geographic space and collective action; that look to the past to move us forward. Resembling ritual tools, the objects also reference gathering, pushing away, binding, splitting, and healing. By layering this mixture of past and future, just and unjust, and the personal and collective, I hope to imbue these talismans with the suggestion of apotropaic qualities that speak to the current moment.

(Special thanks for the support in developing this series to Ox-Bow School of Art & Artists’ Residency Program, Kala Art Institute’s Fellowship Residency Program and Melissa Wyman and the Sedona Summer Colony residency.)

Exhibition history:
Dreaming People’s History, Jewett Gallery, SF Public Library – Main Branch, Kearny Street Workshop (2023)
The future needs new plans, Patricia Sweetow Gallery (2017)
The City Breathing, Kimball Gallery, deYoung Museum (during Studio Artist residency) (2017)