Hats and Chains is inspired by my favorite game as a boy – Chutes and Ladders. There is no point to the game, really it's a matter of luck. But to this day it always gets me choked up when I get the long ladder or the even longer chute. We all know what it means to have “something to hang your hat on” or to get “a feather in your cap.” We even know the subtle difference between being “on the hook for something” and being “hooked on something.” Human relationships are reflected in objects, but hooks and feathers don’t mean anything as such. We are truly neurotic, that's what objects show us. They externalize power relationships without even having to do or be anything in particular. They are empty vessels; by always remaining symbolically unfaithful they make a clandestine home to mercurial ideas.