Joachim Knill

National Treasure is a shipping crate containing a portrait room from Anilife, a place inhabited by stuffed toy animals. The room has been forcefully taken in a regional dispute, acquired by a kingdom, seized in a revolution, captured by a military authority, and now dropped onto the streets of cities to be shared, viewed, and consumed by humans unfamiliar with this foreign cultural artifact. This installation is a statement on how cultures become objectified and turned into commodities, divorced from their original context and valued for their parts regardless of origin, history, or cultural value. These circumstances are paralleled in the creation and sale of each element that makes up the piece. I have constructed and fabricated every part of the crate, including all of the furnishings and paintings, for the sole purpose of creating the installation. The concept becomes actualized once its individual parts get scattered through the process of being sold. Individual pieces find homes in new, unrelated settings and, in time, their origins are ultimately forgotten. Art is removed from one culture and taken into another. This assimilation is the culture that emerges.