to lock out is to lock in
To lock out to lock in is about shared struggle, chosen labor, and the refusal of possession.
This work is a gesture toward solidarity and the dismantling of hierarchy, both in form and process. Inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, it asks what it means to truly live in a world without ownership, without domination. It is a call to be the revolution not to possess or manufacture change, but to embody it.
Here we are beggars, sharers, and contributors. We arrive with empty hands, without past or property, wholly dependent on each other. This is not a position of weakness, but of radical potential. If there is any utopia to be found, it must be built through interdependence, mutual care, and vulnerability.
The artwork questions systems of power that criminalize need and sanctify possession. As Le Guin reminds us, “to make a thief, make an owner; to create crime, create laws.”
Labor is not coerced or commodified, it is chosen, arising from one’s interests, strength, and desire to contribute. Participation itself is the material.
It acknowledges the contradictions of utopia. Anarres, though grounded in equality, is closed and insular. Urras bright with beauty and abundance, but beneath lies violence and control. This work stands in the in between a refusal of both dominance and detachment.
Ultimately, this is not just an installation, but a social organism. – An ongoing manifestation of collective experience.
Dust, ceramic and video installation
