Our response to the colonizer who makes us live on the periphery or not at all

^{Our response to the colonizer who makes us live on the periphery or not at all}

^{Five pairs of index and middle fingers point to the activism and penetrating analysis of archival structures by women who built and sustain the Lesbian Herstory Archives. Cast in iron from their fingers, these proxy library ladder brackets slide salaciously along a rail whose dimensions are unfixed. A quote from archives co-founder Joan Nestle is recast as the work’s title, further describing the archives politics around preserving access to lesbian history as a survival tactic, while drawing attention to the way that the work’s occupation of peripheral space in the gallery also encircles and frames the purportedly neutral white cube. Our response echoes the ladder and my permanent installation Archivist Fingers sited at the LHA in Brooklyn.}

^{cast iron, steel, 2x4s

dimensions of rail variable to fit gallery, casts are life size
2018}