Senator Elizabeth Warren on kelli rae adams' Forever in Your Debt
On the occasion of MASS MoCA's 3rd annual Time of Now Festival, Senator Elizabeth Warren spoke on the student loan debt crisis, her work to help struggling borrowers, and how kelli rae adams' installation Forever in Your Debt powerfully communicates how urgent this issue is. Forever in Your Debt translates abstract student loan debt into a more tangible form while emphasizing the need for collective action to address the issue.
Student loan debt in the US today totals over 1.8 trillion dollars and is collectively borne by more than 45 million Americans, including artist kelli rae adams. With her installation Forever in Your Debt, adams converts this abstract burden into a tangible volume. She has crafted hundreds of wheel-thrown vessels, sized to collectively hold the average individual student debt —$37,000—in the form of coins. Each unique bowl holds approximately a pint of mixed change, worth about $40; this is also the value she assigns to the labor embodied in each vessel.
Adams offers viewers the opportunity to engage directly with the work—and the issue—by inviting them to fill a bowl with their own collected coins. In exchange, the artist will send one of the bowls to each participant at the conclusion of the years-long project. As the vessels are filled, the red interiors—a reference to “being in the red” or owing more money than is earned—are gradually obscured by the coins, reflecting the incremental erasure of student loan debt.
Learn more about Forever in Your Debt: https://massmoca.org/event/kelli-rae-...