Participation Trophy culminated in a solo exhibition at Rocket to Venus in Baltimore, Maryland in March 2019.
Participation Trophy is a project designed to combine elements of humor and nostalgia in a way that is both specific to the artist and universally attributed to the millennial generation. Each trophy was shot on the location in which despite having a losing season, an award was still presented. The choice of installation location as a restaurant mimics American culture’s fascination with sports memorabilia as decor.
The accompanying book, a 5 foot long double-sided accordion fold, plays with the symbolic weight of an undeserved trophy by making the sum of its earnings too much to comfortably view when held fully extended.
May this project be a testament to the recent transcendence of these seemingly innocuous trophies into symbolic monuments of virtue and decaying work ethic.
