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The United States of Everywhere is Justine Smith’s very first map of the US and features strips cut from banknotes from every country in the world. Once cut the strips were cut, they were then sorted into colour blocks as I wanted to show the country state by state, with the nations of all four continents collaged side by side. The print has then been made with the addition of pearlised screen printed 'sea’. The title of the work refers to the US as a nation built by immigrants, and also to the ethos of the American Dream. This ideal of Democracy, Rights, Liberty, Opportunity and Equality may be seen as a universal aspiration, not least now where migration of people on a global level, for financial, social or political reasons has become increasingly prevalent. So, as well as it being a geographical map of The United States of America, it also an imagined place a Utopian vision, an ideal of a place of freedom, safety and equality for all.
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