The Golden Identity, 2021
Description :
The Golden Identity reflects on the relationship between identity, education, and the systems through which society recognizes an individual. Growing up as the first person in my community to receive a formal education made me conscious of how education can alter not only opportunity, but also the way a person is socially identified.
The sculpture enlarges a thumb into a monumental form, with its fingerprint reconstructed in brass. A fingerprint is an identity we inherit naturally, unique to each individual and present regardless of education, class, or social status. The stack of paper beneath the thumb introduces another system of identity: documents, certificates, signatures, and institutional records through which our lives are increasingly validated.
By positioning the fingerprint above the paper, the work questions which form of identification carries greater authority. The brass elevates the fingerprint into a kind of personal currency, suggesting that our most valuable identity may be the one that cannot be taught, awarded, certified, or reproduced. The Golden Identity considers the tension between who we inherently are and who we become on paper.
