Soon after January 20, 2025, federal employees started reporting that certain seemingly innocuous words and phrases found in government contracts and grants were being flagged for “further review,” as they were seen as opposing the principles set forth in a flurry of memos and executive orders announced and circulated by the Trump administration. Phrases like “accessible,” “climate,” “female,” “gender,” “pollution,” and “woman” were now words that could trigger a contract or grant from being defunded or a report from being erased from a public federal database.

East Window will be hosting Effigy 1462 a four year durational work made up of an AmazonBasics paper shredder and 1462 offset printed posters featuring words flagged and banned by the Trump administration and written in the font that mimics the “Make America Great Again” logo. Arranged in a single stack of 1462 posters (which corresponds to the number of days in a four-year presidential term), Effigy 1462 serves as both a measuring device and cathartic instrument since it requires the daily removal and shredding of a single piece of paper from the stack. Effigy 1462 also serves as a reminder of the daily labor required to tend to the stack and the daily labor required to protect against assaults on creative expression, scientific research, free speech, and basic human rights.

— Yumi Janairo Roth

http://www.yumijroth.com