Snowflakes

Joshua Prince

...

Snowflakes

Joshua Prince

...

Snowflakes

Joshua Prince

...

GIF animating zoomed in scroll of lithograph made of Rumsfeld's memo.

Year

2024

Year

2024

Dimensions

96 x 36 x 72 in.

Dimensions

96 x 36 x 72 in.

Materials

Stone lithography, aluminum, plexiglass, hardware, and shredded laser printer paper.

Materials

Stone lithography, aluminum, plexiglass, hardware, and shredded laser printer paper.

An installation imagining a frozen moment in time shredding the numerous documents that detailed the secret planning and thoughts during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Snowflakes is a jab at former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's notorious snowflake memos; now available for public consumption thanks to the reporting by the Washington Post. The installation imagines a frozen moment in time shredding the numerous documents that detailed the secret planning and thoughts during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. It pokes fun at Rumsfeld’s so-called torrent of memorandum writing, while also simultaneously questioning how so much work could accomplish so little substance.

Front view installation shot of Snowflakes, showing the mounted lithograph and paper shredder sculpture floating above a pile of shredded blue laser printer.

Snowflakes, 2025. Stone lithography, aluminum, plexiglass, hardware, and shredded laser printer paper. 96 x 36 x 72 in. Photographed at Parsons The New School Arnold and Sheila Aronson Gallery (credit: Kevin Sparkowich).

Close up installation shot of Snowflakes showing the lithograph framed against a plexiglass sheet and fed through a custom aluminum sculpture of a paper shredder.

Snowflakes, 2025. Stone lithography, aluminum, plexiglass, hardware, and shredded laser printer paper. 96 x 36 x 72 in. Photographed at Parsons The New School Arnold and Sheila Aronson Gallery (credit: Kevin Sparkowich).

Portrait image of Snowflakes lithograph on blue paper. Contains the memorandum and a hand drawn image of Rumsfeld colored in red ink.

Detail of the lithograph from Snowflakes, 2025. Stone lithography, aluminum, plexiglass, hardware, and shredded laser printer paper. 96 x 36 x 72 in.

Copyright: Joshua Prince