On the white, low plinth reminiscent of a monument, the artist applies a thin layer of diluted rooster blood onto medical tape through screen printing. At first, the color is almost invisible. Suspended from the white monument are hundreds of transparent bags containing two liquids: leuco-crystal violet solution and sodium hypochlorite (bleach). When the leuco-crystal violet solution is allowed to flow onto the monument through droppers, the rooster blood is stained a bright gentian violet, gradually revealing countless imprints of the word EXIT. When bleach subsequently drips onto the letters, the protein structure in the rooster blood is damaged, and the gentian violet fades, returning the monument to white, as if nothing had occurred.
In this series, the artist explores the use of gentian violet—a chemical agent associated with “forced marking,” proof of existence, and the assignment of identity—as a metaphor for social expectations that are difficult to defy. As revealed in the bleaching experiment in Fished Running into Dryland, marks considered indelible and persistent can immediately vanish like a cruel joke when exposed to a method that damages the protein structure, as if the mark had never existed.