GDP: Uncharted

From the Artist: Uncharted is about staring into the economic abyss of the pandemic. As an artist with a background in financial journalism, I follow the economy closely. But, when I unbagged the New York Times on the morning of July 26 and saw a chart spanning the entire front page that showed an unimaginable drop in the GDP—the most important measure of our country’s financial health—I was in shock. It looked like America had a heart attack. Of course, a chart can’t begin to capture the lived experience of Covid. Millions of Americans’ livelihoods were abruptly cut off. The suddenly-out-of-work were desperately trying to access unemployment benefits, but state systems were swamped. I wept when I saw someone holding a “Free Food” sign in front of a local church and while watching TV reports of lines snaking around food pantries. It was unthinkable that America could sink so far so fast. Hoarding and political unrest were at full tilt. What could happen next? The right panel in the diptych explores that question while contemplating worst-case scenarios—it captures a moment of panic, catastrophizing, and dread.

The focus of my art practice is what I call “interpretive charting,” in which I chart data that cannot be tracked in the traditional sense. I appropriate the language of charts in abstract imagery to investigate the challenge of navigating chaos, uncertainty, and the unknown. In GDP: Uncharted, I explore pandemic-triggered economic breakdown and the resulting unprecedented chaos that has enveloped our country.