Save the Presidents

Save the Presidents is a film made in collaboration with Alex Strada that focuses on the deterioration of 43 giant stone busts of former American presidents situated in a field in rural Virginia. The busts belonged to a sculpture park that closed in the wake of the 2008 economic crisis. A local farmer and entrepreneur was hired to destroy the busts after the park's closure. He decided instead to preserve them, moving the sculptures onto his own private property and worksite. During their transport and over time, the busts have eroded.

    The film details the decaying materiality of the figures, including the cracks in their faces and the discoloration of their white stone. Structured over the course of a day, the work begins with the presidents sitting drenched in morning sunlight as manual laborers arrive in the field for work. As the light wanes and the laborers leave, the presidents are left alone to watch the sunset fade to black. The film explores the promise and instability of political representation and mythology while raising questions about representations of democracy, whiteness, and gender.

Save the Presidents evolved into a multi-chapter body of work, with the film serving as a point of departure for lecture-performances, sculptural installations, and public presentations that expanded its examination of monuments, memory, and the politics of representation.