Westoak (Click to enlarge)

Your upcoming show is being touted as one of the most important of your career. Can you talk a bit about it and the direction of your new work?
The main focus of the new show is the problems going on in Afghanistan, our alleged withdrawal in the near future, and the aftermath of what we’re going to be leaving behind in destruction. Afghanistan is going to be yet another repetition of old mistakes — if not more accelerated. There’s also already a power struggle starting as to who’s going to be mining the lithium that was recently found there. We’re basically doing with lithium what we did with gasoline, so the new work talks about how we can go about that in a healthier manner.

What do you think the answer is in regard to the United States’ occupation of Afghanistan?
I don’t think there is any answer the way we’ve been approaching things through war. We’re an intelligent species yet we refuse to use our intelligence. We use primal things like killing each other and fighting instead. I think if we were to use our intellect, we wouldn’t have these problems.