Containmination

Where does the impulse to contain come from, and what are the anxieties and conceptual underpinnings that lead to this impulse? The focus on the questions of “origins” reveals the anxieties to contain, or find a container for. The bat, the pangolin, the Chinese. Because an uncontainable virus threatens to reveal the message that the virus contains, the message that contains us as human beings. In this project, I’ve incorporated myself into the flesh of the bacterial cellulose. Documents that legitimize my national incorporation as a foreign body; a F-1 visa holder in the United States of America; an accountable agent that answers to the calls and beckons of the state; an invested player in the economy of debt; etc.