Homeland Security
The outline image of the border of the continental United States is an American icon. It is a mixture of natural geological elements, like rivers and coastlines, combined with a cartesian construction of imagined lines strung across the landscape to separate political, ethnic, and idealogical groups. It is the legal demarcation of our boundries creating citizens, aliens, and immigrants (legal and illegal). Since September 11, 2001 we have been obsessed as a country with this imagined shell. We are in the process of trying to literally build this shell as an impenetrable fence, particularly along the US/Mexican Border. I decided to manifest this obsession by building the first version of “Homeland Security” in Griffner, Austria where I was invited for an outdoor exhibition in 2006. It is a simple garden fence, with no gates, that is meant to keep unwanted pests or aliens out of the garden. “Homeland Security” is a symbol of the American dream and the American nightmare. The second version of “Homeland Security” was commissioned by the Austin Art In Public Places Program as part of the Texas Biennial in 2008. That version has been repaired and reinstalled for the next four months at HemisFair Park here in San Antonio. It is visible from the street level at the intersection of South Alamo and Durango streets. It is also visible from the HemisFair Tower some 750 feet in the air above San Antonio.
As I said, It is the American dream and the American nightmare. It is what we live with everyday.
Ken Little 2010
