United States of Amnesia is an installation that problematizes experiences of my past and present, as they relate to my worries for our society’s potential futures. Inspired by my Haitian ancestry, the four corners of the project represent past, present, utopian future and dystopian future and throughout them lay hints of Haitian Vodou mythology. I aim to use the personal as a microcosm of the larger scale of human suffering, both inevitable and unnecessary. The section relegated to my past questions my Catholic theological assimilation while in the present I ask, “By facing oneself and the reality of living in this time is it possible to prevent a world where I become a version of myself I regret?” The future is then divided up into one where my dreams of a truly equitable society are realized and another where my fears of coming to live in a world wrecked by a systemic inability to face pressing issues is inescapable. Overall, this project serves as a memory of the many realizations I had about my morals and my dreams for myself outside of gaining capital/status, mostly during the 2020 pandemic. I hope to use United States of Amnesia as a foundation for my future projects and a capsule of my small place in human history.
