Three Ring Circus

Week 9, 2018 → 2026

I made Three Ring Circus in March 2018.

At the time, the country felt impossible to follow.

Every day brought another scandal, another crisis, another spectacle competing for attention before the last one could even be processed.

That feeling became the structure of the piece.

A circus works by overwhelming the audience.

Three rings.
Too much happening at once.
No clear place to focus.

At the center of the piece is Vladimir Putin.

In 2018, the dominant story was foreign influence, disinformation, and the growing fear that global power was operating behind the scenes of American politics.

But surrounding that center ring were the other realities unfolding at the same time:
immigration crackdowns,
cabinet chaos,
public protests,
economic instability,
government dysfunction.

The noise never stopped long enough for people to absorb what was happening.

Looking back from 2026, the rings feel even larger now.

War, money, politics, media, and private interests no longer operate separately. The consequences move globally and land publicly.

We are not watching the circus from outside the tent.

We are living inside it.

And maybe that’s the deeper question underneath all of this:

When power performs control,
who pays the price behind the curtain?