Untitled (Call Me?)
Collaboration with Sophia Glass
Installation, Video, Projection, Sculpture
2013
Exhibited at MIX Queer Experimental Film Festival, 2013
Premier exhibition at SONYA Art Walk 2013
This installation explores cat-calling and street harassment. For many, these objectifying, and sometimes frightening, comments and behaviors persist throughout the day. Confronting a harasser on the street is not always a viable option and can feel like an endangerment of personal safety, when comments may turn into threats of violence. This dynamic, paired with the consistency of street harassment, operates as a constant reminder of the tenuousness of claiming ownership over one’s own body.
Untitled reflects the artists’ experiences with street harassment, as informed by their identities of white queer femme and queer femme of color, respectively. Disembodied mouths invoke a kind of physical fragmentation, recalling the feeling of being made a stranger’s object. As the mouths call to each other and to the viewer, we are likewise forced to negotiate our position as both caller and called upon.