Which Side Are You On, Now? Tell Me, Which Side Are You On?

Which Side Are You On? is a sculptural installation that continues my long engagement with Campus Cuties—six-inch mid-century figurines produced by Marx Toys. These mass-produced icons of idealized womanhood have appeared in my work as trophies, chocolates, action figures, drawings, 3D prints, and assemblages. In each iteration, the Cuties are transmutable vessels—objects through which I examine systems of gender, race, class, and cultural power.

In this installation, the Campus Cuties are mounted on classical-style columns, each crowned with a lit candle. These figures evoke the Caryatids of the Erechtheion—women turned into architectural supports, upholding the very structures that confine them. I draw on this symbolism to reflect on how women, through cultural conditioning and survival, can become collaborators in systems that oppress not only others but ultimately themselves. Proximity to power is not power.

This work emerged during the political turbulence of the first Trump presidency and took shape as the pandemic revealed—and deepened—fault lines in our democracy. I began to think about complicity, nationalism, and the growing desire among some to burn down democratic institutions in pursuit of authoritarian control. The candles atop each figure’s head burn slowly and visibly, evoking both vigil and violence, illumination and exhaustion. Fire is transformative—it can destroy, cleanse, and ignite change.

Which Side Are You On? asks viewers to confront the fragility of democracy and the entanglement of gender in its preservation or demise. As the wax melts, the question lingers: are we witnessing collapse, resistance, or rebirth?

Which side are you on now? Tell me, which side are you on?

Wax figures, columns. 2023-24.