Dead-End Economies explores the intersection of personal trauma and the commodification of military service. Drawing from Kenneth T. MacLeish's Making War at Fort Hood, the work examines how military recognition, medals, awards, and honors lose their intended meaning through bureaucratic transactions that often leave service members with mere remnants of recognition. Medals symbolizing valor and sacrifice are frequently logged unceremoniously into soldiers' files. If a soldier wants a physical object, they often must purchase it themselves. These hollow gestures stand in stark contrast to the profound and lasting effects of war, including conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

 

The series uses cyanotypes on cloth, incorporating rubbings of the medals I earned and fragments from my Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) sessions. CPT, a treatment for PTSD, helps individuals process and reframe traumatic events by dissecting them into three parts:

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• Activating Event: "Valor" and "Commodity"

• Belief/Stuck Point: "Victory" and "Currency"

• Consequence: "Sacrifice" and "Cost"

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These six embroidered words anchor the work, juxtaposing the language of therapy, a deeply personal, internal process, with the commodification of military recognition. The cyanotypes are displayed in military medal presentation boxes that mimic the visual language of honor but invert its meaning. Where these boxes traditionally signify achievement, here they hold fragments of psychological reckoning and unresolved trauma.