Sad Tropics

Sad Tropics, is inspired by the title of Claude Levi-Strauss’s book Tristes Tropiques and focuses on the psychological landscape of paradise, the tropics, and more specifically—the mythology of Florida. Through site-specific photo murals, videos, and a themed gift shop installation, the work both celebrates and critiques the eccentricities of the Floridian aspiration. Florida is not quite the “feast of flowers” that Ponce de Leon and his crew described as being the site of eternal youth. Yet still, this marsh territory lined by beaches is where settlers young and old have historically and presently escaped to establish their own vision of utopia. Sad Tropics reflects the hyperbolic ambition embedded within utopian culture—images of modernist geodesic architecture are mingled with tricked out limousines, a stop motion animation featuring top news headlines of ridiculous crimes committed by residents, and photo murals of lush foliage immerse the viewer into the gothic, tropical landscape.