Congress

(2016 - ongoing)

It begins with a single 3" × 5" card. Standardized by the Library of Congress and adopted by libraries around the world, the catalog card distilled books, subjects, and ideas into a system of order, extending a lineage of knowledge organization that reaches back to the Pinakes of Alexandria.

Congress recalls these discarded cards to active service. Using correcting fluid as a medium for blackout poetry, the work obscures, edits, and reassembles the language of bibliographic description. Meanings shift, authoritative voices falter, and the bureaucratic vocabulary of classification reveals unexpected and irreverent narratives.

At once playful and critical, Congress transforms a tool of certainty into a space for ambiguity, inviting viewers to reconsider the relationship between language, knowledge, and the systems that govern both.

Congress is available as a limited box card set.