Exhibited at: JB Hall Gallery, Porter College, University of California, Santa Cruz.
Dimensions: 30 ft. x 23 ft.
Materials: Cast plaster and wax wishbones, muslin, reconstructed chairs turned into restraining devices, audio, performance, pink lighting.
"Account" was a visual comparison of historical and contemporary female identities. This piece evolved out of my research and interest in mental institutions, and the idea of 'hysteria.' "Account" was an installation with many elements, all of which explored the idea of 'insanity', especially the fact that many women were confined to institutions if they did not follow 'normal' behaviour and accepted social assignments. Also, I wanted to explore the idea that these institutions actually made women crazy, particularly those around up until the 1960s.
The gallery was filled with two long expanses of muslin, restraint chairs, piles of wishbones cast from plaster and dipped in wax and hair, and a performance. The restraint chairs were modeled after actual Victorian schoolgirl chairs, which girls were strapped into to induce 'proper' posture and to keep them from masturbating. When the viewer sat in the first chair, their mind and body were seperated, as the holes cut in the muslin were at neck level. This was based on two things- 1) the ceremonial wedding rite where the marriage is consummated while the woman is covered in a sheet with a hole conveinetely located, and 2) the seperation of mind and body that occurs within a mental institution, where your body is no longer your property, and your mind is deemed the cause of it. The viewer was greeted with a pile of wishbones, which were originally used in the early 1800s as a ritual item between two sisters, the one pulling the bigger piece being the one to marry first. In the second chair, I was strapped, playing the 'slapping game' on myself, which is a game where one person tries to slap the other person;s hand first---this game was very interesting to me in terms of trust and self-affliction/self-abuse.
The sound of the slapping game resounded within the gallery space from an audio tape, so that the noise was present at all times. The lighting in the room was pink to aid in the feminization of the space. Account was meant to disorient you, accosting you with various social traditions and artifcacts from the oppressive history of medicalized misogyny, putting you in the place of someone enduring these injustices, as well as pointing out the ridiculous, inhuman nature of these realities when they are taken out of context.
