From September 1 to October 15 2005, I continued working on my ‘Manhattan Project’ during a residency at Sculpture Space in Utica, New York. Interviews, images and text form the basis of my research and use the medium of internet as a space Mohawk Valley

On October 12th I launched the website with an opening in the White Room Gallery. For the presentation I asked visitors to vote on the sketches I was making in collaboration with the Pennsylvania Dutch (Amish), a misnomer. I then told the Amish how people had voted but they still choose a different design and a new quilt will be produced, by hand, in the coming months.

Dutch-American Day

On November 16th, 2005 the work Boogie Woogie Migration, a quilt combining the Dutch and American flags, inaugurated Dutch-American Day at Utica, NY city hall. The quilt disappeared after two days, as veterans working in the building challenged my usage of the flags and complained about the apparent deconstruction of the American(not the Dutch?)flag. They didn’t listen to the explanation of my conceptual approach, nor the reference to Piet Mondrian (Dutch/American), nor to the Betsy Ross myth (scraps of red, white and blue) for that matter. I didn’t even have time to arrange a photographer. So much for freedom of speech in the land of the free and the home of the brave.