Gettysburg Address

This project commemorates President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address as a dual-purpose text. Not only did this short speech serve to consecrate a battlefield as the “final resting place for those who died,” but it also reminded the nation of the “great task remaining.” By repairing the political, geographical, and moral division, Lincoln asserted, “the dead shall not have died in vain”.

This piece translates the famous opening lines from this speech into American Morse code, signifying a telegraphic communication echoing from the past. The series of dots and dashes is painted on yellow caution tape, which cordons off a space, consecrating it and delineating it from the ordinary perimeters of life. 2006 – 2007

Ink on caution tape, 3 ” x 300′ each roll

Related Exhibition: Hopeless and Otherwise, Southern Exposure, Curated by Valerie Imus