My ongoing series 'Fatherland' is an umbilical tug-of-war, an untangling and re-tangling of relationships with father and with nation, which not only parallel, but interweave, intertwine, and knot. Probing the dynamics of my U.S. military family, it is a glimpse behind the curtain of the mythologies and fantasies of the American Dream in order to understand how one comes to an understanding of themself as part of a nation, and the dynamics behind military enlistment. The series explores the blurring of fantasy and reality in the American Dream mythology that motivates U.S. nationalism and militarism, the parallels and overlaps of relationships with one’s father and the Fatherland, and how these myths and family relationships create the national subject.
