Nothing Important indexes my time at Yale with embedded physical remains of projects and personal detritus in a series of clear resin casts. Nothing Important is a sum of its parts: no single thing is important, but the aggregate is. You can see everything at once when the book is closed but seeing inside doesn't always reveal. Nothing Important was displayed on a vanity that had a lorem ipsum that Paloma Izquierdo and I co-wrote etched on its glass surface.

The book and installation were shown in As They Made Their Way Out, Green Hall, 1156 Chapel St, New Haven, CT, April 25 – May 2, 2023. Yale GD Master’s thesis exhibition. Installation Photos: Jackie Furtado 2023.

• 5.82 x 8.26 in.
• Smooth-on Clear Cast Resin, paper clip, starbucks order sticker, prescription bottle top, telephone cord, male side of grommet, thrift store price tag, forever stamp, miniature $50 USD bill, miniature keyboard, partial fragment of zinnia seed packet, match, prescription of generic lexapro, palm tree eraser, partial star gemstones, iron shavings (glitter). 10 resin cast pages, 4 printed pages

Sarah Elawad and I designed the identity and named Group 1's Yale MFA Scultpure Thesis Show, Liquidator. Photos by Paloma Izquierdo.

• Gallery Poster: 33 x 72 in.
• Silly Straws, Gatorade, Suction Cups, Digital Flyer, Printed Poster.

Under the name, Fulanita, Paloma Izquierdo and I have a collaborative partnership. Together, we exploit feminization as a tool that is dismissed and unnoticed for our own gain. Ornamentation is seen as unnecessary and superfluous, which makes it useful as a technique that entices and distracts.

Fulanita has made:

• Pocket NDA. Red Riso printing on White Cardstock, 2.5 x 4 in. Edition of 250.
• Encrypted. Etched magnifying glass, brass frame, 5 x 11 x .5in
• Heart Security Bolts. Custom brass machined heart security bolts with matching aluminum bits, 1.5 x .625 x .25 in.
• Outlets. Glitter acrylic, 2.75 x 4.5 in.

Security cameras decorated with gemstones glisten and seduce you to perform for their gaze. The spotlight is the crosshair making its subjects the target of attention.

• 7.4 x 5.83 x 5.71 in.
• 2 security cameras, gemstones, screws, AAA batteries.

I wrote a short essay on the agency of photographed subjects and the dissemination of images for a workshop with Linda Van Deursen called The Image of Graphic Design. I printed it on fabric and Paloma Izquierdo sewed it into a strapless gown. Words mapped onto bodies give voice to its muted subjects. When photographed, text on apparel flattens the caption into the photo itself, becoming a single object that serves as both content and context.

• 42 x 108in.
• Digitally printed cotton, Zipper.

I interviewed Darnell over voice memos interspersed throughout our regular text conversation. We talked about inhabiting characters, projecting meaning onto objects, and the boundaries of desire.

Poster made with a collection of erasers for the Graphic Design Lecture Series at Yale.

• 36 x 48 in.

Phone sex operators as remote workers are able to transmit their voices and engage in others fantasies globally, this independence from being seen or having a finite place of work creates a distributed network of women workers. Other related forms of feminine vocal work are ASMR, Sonic Signage, and AI Assistants. This book features my essay talking about the role of disembodied voice in Spike Lee's Girl 6 and includes the cited bibliography for a film class I took, The Working Girl Around the World taught by Dr. Leana Hirschfeld-Kroen.

• 4.25 x 11 in
• Spiral Bound, Transparent Acrylic etched cover, 56pp

How do we index our bodies inside and out? Biometric data can range from fingerprints to diary entries. This series of prints are covered with graphite powder and collage text and image on surveillance, identification technologies, and the minutiae of everyday life.

• 18 x 27 in.
• Griphite Powder, Pearlescent Powder, Clear Base on Hahnemule Paper

The stereoscopic viewer was invented in the late 19th century to entertain and to afford "exotic" trips to citizens of the Western World to its empirical colonies. The technology has remained essentially unchanged with modern VR, although its uses are quite different. I made a series of stereo slides with writing and images that refer to opacity, refusing to be seen, and the politics of aesthetics.

• 7.5 x 4 in
• 2 color risograph prints on gray cardstock, 10 pp

Using objects for other purposes than what they were originally intended for or refusing to be useful are contemporary forms of luddism. Equipment and services needed for work like laptops, internet, rent, electricity bills are all offloaded onto the worker when we work remotely — how can we ‘break stuff’ when we own the means of production?

This anthology includes collected writings covering themes of tech skepticism, gig work, deceleration, automation, the power of boredom, examples of counter-tech, anti-work, uses of nostalgia, reclaiming uselessness.

• Saddle Sewn, 200 pp, Black Laser print on Newsprint
• Features 8 illustrations by Federico de Vinciolo, that were Patterns for Lace, Embroidery and Needlepoint, in 1588
• Display type is a custom font I made, Point Break, that references patterns for looms

Grammy’s House is a digital archive of photos and printed ephemera that my grandma gave me before she moved to Egypt in 2018. This is an ode to her and the city that raised us both. I made a physical dollhouse installation with miniatures I purchased that were based on items grammy kept in her homes. I also delivered a performance lecture, in a class On Gathering taught by Mindy Seu, that mirrored the navigation of the website, which is a floorplan of her LES apartment, in real space.

Elliott Cost interviewed me about the project on Gossip’s Web.

The installation was shown in Entre fotos y cuadernos, entre cosas y recuerdos, Hessel Museum of Art, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, April 2 – May 29, 2022. Master’s thesis exhibition curated by Angelica Arbelaez. Photo: Olympia Shannon 2022.

• Dollhouse: Laser etched plywood, white house paint, glue, 20 individual miniatures, printed facsimilies and reproductions from photos my grandmothers photo archive
• Lecture: Single channel projection, Red Masking Tape, Printed Postcards

I collaged random images I had saved on my desktop on various things I have been thinking about: bioluminescence, femdom, analog photography, etc. I first riso printed and made copies with a vintage Xerox machine — I then experimented with reproducing these images onto clay.

• Riso Prints, Cone 10 Clay Slabs with Black underglaze
• Approx 8.5 x 11 in

Anglo is a revival of Anglo Black 503 from George Bruce's Son & Co., Type Founders. I redrew this tyepface because I wanted a legible, text-weight, blackletter that almost read as a monoline sans serif. I am interested in how blackletter has an aesthetic presence in Black & Brown communities that has a life of its own — separate from the European canon and history of moveable type.

This video is a short experimental documentary about a derelict building I cherished— featuring a special mural— that was demolished in 2019.

• Single Channel Video
• 5min 14s
• Screened at Brought it Home: A Continuum

The term Hammock is a loan word that originated from the Taíno (“Hamaka”) which Spaniards essentially left unchanged (“Hamaca”) but then anglicized in the English speaking West (“Hammock”). Chilleando es una hamaca that cites poesía, the 1552 account Historia general de las Indias by Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo Valdés, and academic papers on the struggle with Spanglish y los efectos de colonización.

• Digital print on canvas, grommets and rope
• 42 in x 6 ft
• Exhibited in Brought it Home: A Continuum at Afro American Cultural Center at Yale
• Exhibited in Action Required, at Green Hall, 1156 Chapel St.

A taxonomy of icons, textures, and curious abandoned buildings around one of the NYC neighborhoods I grew up in. I found out that one of the geodesic domes CHARAS built— the one Buckminster Fuller visited— was on the same plot of land my fathers apartment building currently stands.

• 2 Color Risograph publication, 24pp
• 5.5 x 8.5 in
• Edition of 10

Penthouse is a revival of Bauer’s Venus and it is a work in progress.

ASMRtists, service workers, graphic designers, gig workers, and all independent contractors (on & off the books) know the instability that is the modern job market. The more immaterial your job description, the higher the paycheck... This book includes social media comments, memes, academic writings, articles and asmr videos on the subject.

• 5 saddle stitched signatures and perfect bound with glue, 56 pp
• 5-7/8 x 8-1/4 in

The stock market is an invisible force that has tangible affects on people despite its disconnect from reality. This vibrator makes it concrete.

• Single channel video, 55s
• Repackaged ready-made Jack Rabbit Vibrator

I made a custom logotype and labels for homemade vermouth by my friend, Kyle Shybunko, who started to make bitters at home during the COVID-19 quarantine.

The term Lousy Mindless Salesgirl comes from Blood and Guts in High School by Kathy Acker, published in 1984. This website questions the purpose of labor and a persons worth in relation to their position as a worker in America. This was my first website, I made it during Fruitful School, big thanks to Laurel Schwulst & John Provencher.

Coquito, which translates to "little coconut", is a traditional winter holiday drink made in Puerto Rico and its diaspora. The recipe varies but is usually a mix of coconut + sweetened, condensed milks. I made a dairy-free version, and branded it with a custom KOKITO logotype based on the Good’ O Kola Champagne logo. Kola Champagne is another drink import from Puerto Rico and remains a staple in NYC bodegas. Sold Out