The World Is Broken
Courtney Hoskins (UCB)

Filtered photograph of transparent collage
Crossed polarizing filters are often used to perform stress tests on plastics. As the plastic bends under increased pressure, it changes color to indicate its level of stress. As an artist, I used this tool to indicate my emotional level of stress while living in New York at the time of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. Just as those buildings collapsed under the stress of a fracture, so too did the plastic cup illustrated in shards in this piece. This is a collage of transparent plastics, photographed with polarizing filters. The image has not been digitally altered.