Yard Work, a new chapter in the research of American artist Carolyn Drake, is a kaleidoscope of shapes and colors. The images, created during the pandemic period, are animated by objects of every shape and nature, coming from the author's domestic environment and garden, expertly assembled into sculptures that often take on anthropomorphic features. These precarious, almost totemic structures, at the same time grotesque and disturbing, stand out against brightly colored backdrops, expressing a vital tension, often erotic and at times primordial. However, the apparent lightheartedness and light-heartedness of the subjects breaks down upon closer inspection: small surveillance cameras appear nestled among branches, fragments of prints, vegetation and waste of various kinds. Precisely in the internal fold of the pages the images recorded by these devices are hidden, which trigger a second level of reading, in a game of mirrors in which the photographed subject becomes a photographer in turn. What emerges is a reflection on the dynamics of power and the relationships of gaze inherent in the photographic medium, themes that have long run through Drake's practice. Between playful impulse and latent restlessness, the book thus takes the form of a complex visual device, capable of questioning the ways in which we look and are, in turn, looked at.