Their Cause Is My Cause (detail) (2017) | varying dimensions | Red Oak, Pine, gold beads, patina

On Feb. 15, 2015, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) released a video entitled, ‘A Message Signed With Blood to the Nation of the Cross’, which shows 21 Coptic Christians being beheaded on a sandy beach. This is just one of the 1,100 instances between 2003 and 2014 in which ISIS has brutally murdered Christians. The piece consists of seven spire-like ladder structures. In the midst of each of the spires are highly polished, wooden vessels. Each of these vessels carries delicate gold beads, symbolizing the passage of the 1100 martyrs from the harshness of this life into the grandeur of the next.