"She Says"
Silkscreen and Video, 24" x 36", 2019
"She Says" was born from the writing of Charlotte Perkins Gilman in "The Yellow Wallpaper." The narrator's husband, John, belittles her throughout the short story, which causes the narrator to constantly doubt herself and her sense of reality. For "She Says," I isolated every sentence in "The Yellow Wallpaper" that began with "John says..." or "He says..." and offset it against a related quote from a womxn activist working today. I screen printed the exchange, then back projected a video compilation of myself reading the "John says..." half against the video clip of the womxn activist speaking her line in defiance of the demeaning ways in which womxn are still addressed in politics and activism today. The line from the short story relates in content to the line from the activist, so the piece reads a conversation between the belittling character of John and the powerful activists working in social and political justice today.
This piece was shown as part of The Reader Exhibition at Tenderbooks in London, UK, in March 2019.
