By 2005 things had changed for sure. The atmosphere was very different. For the longest time I couldn’t work it out. New York City had mutated after the attacks into a very strange place that felt foreign and familiar at the same time. The language of fear was everywhere. It got to ridiculous levels. I remember hearing on my way out the door to take my dog for her daily walk in Central Park a news alert on TV on "why you should not take your dog out to Central Park". I sat through 40 minutes of the report to learn that somebody had left a piece of meat in the park with a pin in it. Ridiculous fear mongering. "We are protecting you." "How you can protect your family." Everything was suspicious. The government was busy wire taping its citizens and the language being used was super patriotic. I recognized the language because I grew up with it: insurgents, terrorists, threats, potential targets, homebred terrorists, our country, our boys, our forces, protection...
When I was a kid my uncle would put me on his knee and ask me if I would “die for dear old Ireland." He wasn’t joking. What I saw now was an America that was skewing way off course into this patriotic nightmare. I developed the exhibition “Troubles at Home” to counteract what I felt was a tragic deviation. .
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