The Absurdity of a Trillion Dollars

2019

Detecto Postogram Scale, Salt

14″ x 22″ x 10″

In this work, each grain of salt (the original currency) represents the average American lifetime pay of 1.4 million dollars. Assuming each grain of salt on average weighs .5mg, a trillion dollars is represented as .79lbs of salt. The visual representation of a trillion dollars includes almost 800,000 grains of salt. Each grain as a lifetime salary illustrates how much wealth is being acquired by one person at the expense of many. For 516 Arts Currency: What do you value?