Return and Schedule Self-Interest

Inspired by the conditions and interactions in my own life, I created Return and Schedule Self-Interest which is the first in a series focused on the US taxation structure. Whether or not one files a 1040 to report their participation in labor and mechanisms of material conditions, this system, built from demographically-biased justifications and assumptions, impacts everyone. Tax forms are embedded with formulas defining and assigning monetary advantages and penalties to certain care-giving relationships, types of labor, and characteristics of people, and, thus, maintain and accelerate long-standing hierarchies. Through textiles and scale, the work speaks to the emotional, and often traumatic impact, that this notoriously boring and onerous, yet potent and ever-present, apparatus has on us individually and collectively. Eleven panels inspired by Form 1040 and the Schedules that support it are installed such that viewers can stand sandwiched between—thus alluding to my racialized location—pages of a system that perpetuates the black and white “logic” and poles of our society.