The Rule of Law: Sunshine State 2022

Today much political discourse revolves around an increasingly bizarre notion of the “rule of law”. At the same time, the ill health of the planet increasingly dominates human minds and bodies. The result is a dread and anxiety superimposed upon the human as well as the natural world. 

In the US, an epicenter of these two pressures is located in the state of Florida. In this series of three collages Youngdahl interprets these forces, clothed in a colorful beauty.

Each collage contains a page from one of the three laws enacted by the state legislature in Tallahassee in the early 2020’s. These laws target free speech, the freedom to exercise one’s gender identity, and the right to learn an honest exposition of the history of slavery, replacing each of these rights with a certain cultural view favored by the powerful in the state. Juxtaposed with these pages of statutory language are photos from a mangrove bayou in St. Petersburg taken from Youngdahl’s kayak near his home.