Fifty States (reoriented for efficiency)

2024
polished stainless steel, shape-packing software
8 feet x 4 feet by .25 inches

Inspired by the wooden U.S. state puzzles common in American childhoods, this sculpture uses a shape-packing algorithm to arrange all fifty states in their most spatially efficient configuration on a single standard 4 x 8-foot mirrored steel sheet. The states are divorced from their familiar geographic context and reorganized according to computational logic. State boundaries have always been somewhat arbitrary, yet in a period of heightened polarization, these same boundaries increasingly determine which rights a person holds, making the arbitrary feel absolute.