Specimens

Small works, roughly eight by five inches, cut paper and acrylic mounted on bare kraft board and recycled cardboard so the substrate reads as a specimen card.

Each title names something living, then a pair of properties that will not resolve. Coral Sponge Specimen (Healing & Toxic). Mexican Sycamore Specimen (Roots & Ax). Heavens Ceiba Specimen (Smoke & Wood). Quetzal Skull Specimen (Bone & Skin). Blue Maiz Specimen (Tensile & Compressive).

A specimen is the format a culture uses to say that something has been collected, named and settled. These accept the first half and refuse the second. Every one of them holds two things a category would make you choose between.