Cadence

In this body of work, I draw on the hardened register of military cadence songs and overlay it with imagery derived from training films and field manuals. The tension arises when the language of instruction—designed to unify, to direct, to solidify a communal mind—shifts into its double-meaning: commands meant for the rank-and-file become echoes in public space, loose slogans, cultural memos.

I am asking: what happens when the structures built for protection become the same structures that control? Where do we choose to surrender agency in order to feel safe — or to feel part of something larger than ourselves? And when that “something larger” demands uniformity, repetition, obedience, what is lost in the fix-step rhythm of belonging?

Here, the surplus of orientation—manuals, drills, cadences—becomes image: the drill instructor’s “sound track” enters civilian space; the field manual becomes allegory. The “Cadence” series reveals how instruction not only teaches, it indoctrinates. It shows how one group’s line of defense can become another’s line of delimitation.

In this work I inhabit the space between “we are safe” and “we are contained.” I invite viewers to feel both the protective structure and the overbearing frame. The echo of a chant, once intended to marshal bodies, now liberates questions. The image of training becomes the metaphor of culture. And in the overlap of language and image lies the uneasy possibility: that by marching in step we may gain belonging — yet by doing so, we might also trade away the very independence that defines us.

Using text culled from military cadence songs with images from training films and field manuals this series titled, "Cadence", reflects back language from the military that has found its way into the public, creating a double entendre and conflicted reading of the work. The work also alludes to the role instruction plays in indoctrination and the forming of a communal mind. Ultimately revealing the dynamics between control and protection, and how we sacrifice one for the other in order to feel safe, and at times, part of something larger than ourselves.