For my mid-year thesis work, my exhibition piece is a 3-part piece, each representing a different year of creation.
I made “Burden of Contraception” last fall after a frustrating experience with IUDs and the anger that followed, as I have had too many women share experiences of male partners expecting the woman to be the one to “deal” with contraception. The side effects of birth control alone are harrowing, with women often having to try many different types before they find the one that’s right for them. In fact, the birth control sheet is only a sliver of the packet you receive, as 90% of the packet is a large, folded up sheet listing all the potential side effects risks, and warnings.
I made “untitled” my sophomore fall. Experimenting with new materials and ways of making, I chose to use rice paper, water, acrylic ink, and gesso to make this piece for a final in one of my art classes.
…is the overarching title of my midway thesis installation, as well as the title of the main focus of the installation: my project for Ross Wightman’s “Media of Sound” class through the CCAM (Center for Collaborative Arts and Media), where I aimed to represent three distinct periods of my life through three related analog media forms.
In My Room…
The cassette tape represents my life from ages 0-6, featuring audio clips from TV shows I watched as a kid, songs that I have vivid memories of listening to in those years, and even extracted audio of my heartbeat via my mom’s ultrasound when she was pregnant with me.
The CD represents ages 7-11, and the lathe-cut record represents ages 12-18. All of these pieces were made by combining—and transferring—analog and digital audio forms, as the transfer from analog to digital or digital to analog is a reflection of the degradation and transformation of audio over time.
These three pieces are set up on a wooden record organizer I found from Goodwill, a chair I found discarded in our senior studio, and a rug I bought from a store, with the pattern resembling a carpet in my childhood home. For me, this project—and exhibition as a whole—was an exploration in reflecting my identity and consciousness in the pieces of media that I feel have defined—or guided me through—my development into who I am today. They are guideposts for how I came to be the person I am now, each piece of media having the potential to also resonate with/trigger memories for listeners/viewers who engage with my piece.