Elizabeth Axtman approaches the Question of Truth with inquiries surrounding the famed American serial killer from the late 1970s and early 1990s, Jeffery Lionel Dahmer. Dahmer murdered and sexually assaulted 17 men and boys, the majority of whom were African American or of Asian descent. Axtman proposes an exhibition about Dahmer's adamant denial that race mattered in his choice of victims with the hypothesis that the assaults were explicitly about race.

She states, "although Dahmer denied the clear racial elements in his killings, the motivation behind his multicultural approach to cannibalism was driven by a desire for the black body. When seen in light of the racial statistics of his victims it becomes evident that the killings cannot be said to be neutrally conceived and therefore media coverage, which does not interrogate this element of his case knowingly suppresses these facts. This is where my work begins. It is a response to the incessant denials of racial equality in pop culture and the media. Using the very fabric of the media as my material I rework familiar stories with an eye toward the big picture, truth."

For In Anticipation, Axtman exhibits her proposal as a sound installation. This collage of news clippings, testimonies and detailed accounts of the rapes, murders, torture and necrophilia asks "Who is the savage in our society?" When so much of contemporary mass media and historical narratives portray people of color as savages and when so much of the information we receive is censored and doctored, when it is time to question the truths we are told?

To read more about Elizabeth Axtman's piece, plese see the text written by Nicole Lattuca.