Civil institutions rarely collapse suddenly. They erode gradually, often unnoticed, in a way that frames their downfall as the institution’s own failure rather than the result of external pressures. PRESS makes this slow decline visible, compacting the many cuts to press freedom and free speech into a single, tangible act.

The project centers on a custom-fabricated granite gravestone engraved with the word “PRESS” on the top and in reverse on the bottom. When the gravestone is pressed into dirt, it leaves the word embedded in soil. PRESS can exist as a performance, a scalable outdoor installation, or an indoor sculpture with a smaller footprint.  

During the performance, at least two performers lift and lower the gravestone onto premade rectangular mounds of dirt while headlines are read aloud, naming acts of censorship, the intimidation and killing of journalists, the mass loss of reporting jobs, and the collapse of local newsrooms.

This ritual of mourning urges audiences to consider who controls information, how truth is shaped, and what it takes to defend the institutions that hold power accountable. It confronts the consequences of their loss and asks what else is buried when journalism is silenced: truth, accountability, democracy itself?

Press was funded in part by the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance.