Dust collected from the inburgering exam center in Amsterdam, suspended in alcohol, stored in glass, on galvanized steel, in a drawer. 

The title partly refers to Ann Laura Stoler's account of imperial governance, a system that has always operated through the administration of attachment and management of affect. One of its current forms is the language integration exam, in which the body is asked to perform in exchange for the right to stay.

Empire is not a finished event. It is an ongoing condition, sustained through its institutions and procedures, and reproducing a longer history of extracting and classifying living entities into transferable commodities. Tincturing has historically been used to isolate botanical essence for European imperial science and commerce. Set against this continuum, the work applies tincturing to the institution itself as both method and problem, extending the same logic it seeks to trouble.