The American artist David Opdyke works in sculpture, drawing, animation and installation, often using economical and commonly found materials. In Landslide (2005), Opdyke constructed a three-dimensional map of the United States from painted urethane foam. The map is obstructed by fractures which at first resemble natural formations like mountain ranges or bodies of water, if not fissures from plate tectonics. However, Opdyke suggests that the breaks reference divisions in the country politically. In a conversation with Phong Bui for the Brooklyn Rail, Opdyke recalls, "'Landslide' was originally a response to the political waste of the 2004 election and the idea of 'battleground states,' which I thought of as the landscape of the country fractured and broken by a massive earthquake. People talked about the country being literally split into parts, that the Blue states had become another country or maybe should join Canada." [1]