Eugenics

Artist Statement

I became interested in Eugenics in 1990 while researching European genocide and American racism. Going back to the roots of Eugenical thinking in the Enlightenment was the key that focused my curiosity on how societies legitimize and institutionalize discrimination and worse. Enlightenment thinkers, humanist and often anti-slavery, prized order and ideal beauty, and sought to understand how living beings are related in a comprehensible scheme. The irony of the transformation of eugenical ideas from their Enlightenment roots to those of the first half of the 20th century is profound. The legitimate societal concern about protecting ourselves and others from harm grew astronomically due to the results of urbanization and industrialization.