Straining

In Straining, terracotta dwarf figures are compressed and embedded within piles of bricks. The use of bricks as a metaphor for workers adds a powerful layer of meaning to the installation. Bricks, fundamental to construction yet individually overlooked, represent the laborers and lower classes who are essential to building and sustaining society but are often treated as anonymous, replaceable parts of a larger structure. Each brick symbolizes the contribution of an individual worker. This fusion speaks to the entrapment of the laboring class within rigid social hierarchies, where their contributions are fundamental but often invisible, their own lives indistinguishable from the structures they support. This work is a powerful metaphor for the erasure of individual identities within oppressive systems, where workers are not merely supporters but become a structural part of the social edifice.