Jacob C. Hammes

The Candide Project is an ongoing investigation into associations between historical events and overtly pessimistic attitudes towards human culture, using the satirical novel Candide by Voltaire as a symbol and springboard for discussing how groups form out of similar negative world-views. Many groups and movements associate death imagery with an ability to combat anxieties over uncertainty of survival and to empower individuals. Much of this work will focus on post black plague western societies and natural disasters that directly shape the ideas of survivors and their contemporaries.

This project will take the form of sculpture and installation as well as curatorial work, to be completed in late 2011.