Our Own Worst Enemy, 2009 - 2010, wood, alkyd paint, tires, vinyl, paper, and participants, installation dimensions variable, cart: 44” x 43” x 84 ½”, crane: 74” x 67” x 13”, donkey: 104 “x 60” x 30”
Our Own Worst Enemy utilizes the history of the Piñata and Mexican Folk Art As a means of exploring the history of individuals. Participants are asked to write down a moment of indiscretion on a card, place it inside a slit on the donkey’s back, in exchange for a hand made paper flower.
Piñatas originated in China as clay posts filled with gold and jewelry, candy, and food. Nobility used them as objects of entertainment. Due to the silk and spice trade, the Piñata migrated to the Middle East, Italy, and Spain. Spaniards brought the Piñata to the New World and transformed the clay pot into a seven pointed paper star. Each point on the star was a stand-in for the seven deadly sins—lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, envy, pride—and was used to indoctrinate the indigenous people of Mexico into Christianity.
In re-representing an oversized Piñata, the work playfully harnesses established metaphorical associations to connote an animal that has been burdened with a multi-hybrid identity. Our Own Worst Enemy references the Piñata as a translatable conduit for cultural exchange, both positive and negative, as it relates to the human condition.