22 hand-painted baby bibs, dimensions variable, 20’ long (installed at SPACES, Cleveland). In spring of 1998, the first twenty-two Rwandan Hutus convicted of participating in the slaughter of 1994 wore white bibs with black squares painted on them, indicating the location of their sternums. They were executed in public by a firing squad that aimed at the squares at a one-meter range. The United Nations, which set up its own court in Tanzania to judge those suspected of genocide, had yet to deliver a single verdict.* The minority Tutsis, backed by the West, led a repressive government for decades before their overthrow, which led to the genocide. The black squared bibs here serve as a remembrance of myriad moral stains we nightly (take to) table. * Alfonso Rojo in Kigali from a Manchester Guardian Weekly article of May 3, 1998

Date: 04/02/1998