With my own militia of Army Toy Soldiers casted from melted down Irish Spring soap, I elicit an infamously male scent in the space. The toy soldiers are piled on a tiled table that sits somewhere between a kitchen and bathroom, where the bowels of domesticity are. Above the table and almost out of sight, drips my landlord’s faucet. Slowly deteriorating the recognizable features of these soldiers as they begin to fuse under the constant pressure and outside force that influences their very being.

In this work I am exploring the psyche of Soldier Males and hyper-nationalist ideology as it strips agency from individuals and turns them into a war producing machine for the expansion of their land and power. I am considering how war seeped into the home, from idealized reproductions on tv and movie screens to the mass consumption of toys that resembled weaponry and military gear. The perceptions of violence in war in the U.S. has been overshadowed by the glamorized, isolated lens of U.S. media and industry that profits directly from war and conflicts. Diluted to something that happens elsewhere, nowhere near here.