Little Wars

Carousels originated in 12th-century military training, the carosellos or "little wars," where knights practiced combat through competitive spectacle. By the 19th century, these machines had been rebranded for pleasure, their surfaces glazed in saturated pigments and their expressions fixed in theatrical panic. This project explores the tension between the carousel’s festive facade and its aggressive martial history. By focusing on the "Philadelphia Style" of carving, which is characterized by flared nostrils and wide eyes, these images capture animals caught in a permanent state of fight-or-flight. Isolated against a black void, the intensity of these carved forms becomes impossible to ignore, stripping away childhood nostalgia to reveal a raw, sculptural aggression.