"She continues to need support and assistance" (2023)

This installation assembles fragments from early elementary education—including progress reports, worksheets, and childhood writing samples—into a grid that critiques the bureaucratic language of schooling. By juxtaposing administrative forms with expressive student work, “She continues to need support and assistance” highlights how institutional feedback can shape self-perception from an early age, often labeling and limiting before nurturing.

Drawing from personal archives, the piece functions as both memoir and inquiry. It asks: How do educational systems define success? Who gets to feel capable, creative, or smart? The title, taken directly from a report card comment, becomes a mantra of coded deficiency—one many children internalize as identity.

The use of childhood handwriting and drawings situates the viewer in the developmental space between vulnerability and imagination, revealing the tension between institutional structure and individual potential.