House of Cards

The House of Cards series reflects the vulnerability of people facing deportation and the fragility of our democracy. Overglaze decals of “Print Your Own Red Cards” (tarjetas rojas)—available free online in multiple languages to help people assert their legal rights and defend against constitutional violations during encounters with ICE—are paired with black-and-white U.S. flags, symbols of protest and disillusionment with the nation’s promises of justice and equality.

The first piece in the series, Mi Casa, began with the realization that legislation like the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2025 could have affected members of my own family, many of whom were born to Mexican immigrants who had not yet naturalized.

Jenny, You’re No Richard Shaw riffs off Shaw’s Whiplash, acknowledging both Shaw's remarkable craftsmanship and ceramic history while reframing its concept to reflect the jolting, disorienting nature of our own time and place in history, and speaking to the narratives we inherit and create. Here, text underscores questions of how meaning is constructed, who gets to speak, and what remains of a democracy that feels fragile, unsteady, and one crisis away from collapse.

Year One, January 20, 2026 marks the end of the first year of this presidential administration, framed as a collapsing house of cards. Resting atop Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism, the structure teeters, fractures visible as the pile slips toward its end. Foresight ignored, the falling structure evokes the slide into totalitarianism Arendt describes as marked not by sudden rupture, but by accumulated fractures.