American Burger, 2017 is a sculptural installation: a cast burger embedded with a screen looping re-edited scenes from film and television in which characters bite into burgers. Drawing on found footage, the work examines how American media recycles familiar gestures into symbols of nationalism, desire, and control.
The burger becomes a lens through which to consider performance and power—who gets to consume, and how. Across genres, the act of biting is gendered, fetishized, and ritualized. In some cases, it’s weaponized. In others, denied. Even within the industry, consumption is choreographed: certain actors are forbidden from eating on camera, while others request it to assert presence.
Using repetition and iconography, American Burger probes the contradictions embedded in a culture that stages appetite—where something as ordinary as a burger becomes a spectacle of identity.