POP

Description	"POP" is the culmination of ten weeks of creating artworks, conducting library research, visiting museums and galleries in New York City, and conducting material investigation completed during the summer 2012 with the generous support of an Emerson Summer Research Grant with Professor Rebecca Murtaugh of Hamilton College. In an exploration to define “domestic space”, or the physical space that the human body encounters during routine interactions with its environment, I began looking at the original domestic space: the female body. I started thinking literally, of the female vagina as a space to be occupied, and about how this notion has shaped subsequent human actions. I considered human interactions, conversations, and technological developments as they relate to the female body. While reflecting upon my own physicality, I questioned the materials and objects that become part of my own body. This led to contemplating why undergarments are shaped in a particular way. I was intrigued by the space “inside” underwear where the human body is normally present. In "Underwear", this relationship is reversed, by turning the underwear inside out and giving the form a presence rather than an absence. The individuality of each piece references the individuality of each domestic space, of each female. While working in the studio, in the heat of the summer, I found myself eating a bag of cherries, another object that became part of my own body. The properties of the female form and cherries have impacted human interactions and conversations, such as in the common phrase, “popped her cherry”. I engaged in the conversation of how the cherry might define our interactions with it in works such as the video "Process of Popping", exhibiting the remnants of popping in the sculpture "Cherry Corpses", and observing the stains left behind from popping in the wall piece "Cherry Portraits". For "Underwear", I put out a call for donations of stained female undergarments. Anonymously collecting from the public, this interactivity was intended to make women conscious of how their bodily functions shape their daily lives.

Description

"POP" is the culmination of ten weeks of creating artworks, conducting library research, visiting museums and galleries in New York City, and conducting material investigation completed during the summer 2012 with the generous support of an Emerson Summer Research Grant with Professor Rebecca Murtaugh of Hamilton College.

In an exploration to define “domestic space”, or the physical space that the human body encounters during routine interactions with its environment, I began looking at the original domestic space: the female body. I started thinking literally, of the female vagina as a space to be occupied, and about how this notion has shaped subsequent human actions. I considered human interactions, conversations, and technological developments as they relate to the female body.

While reflecting upon my own physicality, I questioned the materials and objects that become part of my own body. This led to contemplating why undergarments are shaped in a particular way. I was intrigued by the space “inside” underwear where the human body is normally present. In "Underwear", this relationship is reversed, by turning the underwear inside out and giving the form a presence rather than an absence. The individuality of each piece references the individuality of each domestic space, of each female.

While working in the studio, in the heat of the summer, I found myself eating a bag of cherries, another object that became part of my own body. The properties of the female form and cherries have impacted human interactions and conversations, such as in the common phrase, “popped her cherry”. I engaged in the conversation of how the cherry might define our interactions with it in works such as the video "Process of Popping", exhibiting the remnants of popping in the sculpture "Cherry Corpses", and observing the stains left behind from popping in the wall piece "Cherry Portraits". For "Underwear", I put out a call for donations of stained female undergarments. Anonymously collecting from the public, this interactivity was intended to make women conscious of how their bodily functions shape their daily lives.