Income Inequality
20252025
4 x 7 feet
artists: D.G., R.T., S.K., B.A., A.J., I.L., J.O., K.V., T.P., Z.S., Y.D.,V.G., T.G., B.B.
In the fall of 2024, two groups collaborated to create this four-by-seven-foot public artwork. Eight students at the Utah State Correctional Facility and six youth advocates from the Sugarhouse Boys & Girls Club took part, with the youth advocates selecting “income inequality” as the artwork’s theme. The Boys & Girls Club primarily serves low-income families; all eight students in the prison had been members of the club when they were young.
Artist Mollie Hosmer-Dillard hosted discussions on Matthew Desmond’s Poverty, by America for each group, and conveyed the reactions to the reading from one group to the other. Each of the 14 students then created a drawing that illustrated one aspect of poverty or income inequality, and sharing the drawings from one group to the other became its own form of spirited intergenerational exchange.
To unify all 14 drawings, the two groups chose to add computer glitches between them, since critical conversations on A.I. had been part of the discussions, and since that imagery captured the emotional turbulence these difficult conversations produced.
With a grant from the Salt Lake City Arts Council, this artwork was fabricated out of laser-cut steel and installed on the side of the Sugarhouse Boys & Girls Club building.
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