A few weeks ago, my best friend here at St. Mary's was sexually assaulted. It was a Saturday night. We had gone to a party, and on her way home, someone thought it was ok to take advantage of her. But it wasn't. And it's not. But for some reason, things like this occur every single day. To normal people, like you and me. And there is not much done about it here at St. Mary's - not by the school, or the counseling services, or even the county sheriff. There are so many girls and women being sexually abused, and the treatment and reception they recieve from authorities here after they report what has happened to them is almost as degrading and criminal as the act committed to these women itself. And sadly my best friend is actually not even the first person that I know here at St. Mary's who was raped on campus.
For my final sculpture, I decided to use this event that has so greatly affected not only my best friend's life, but my life as well as a catalyst, and an inspiration for my final piece.
The point of my sculpture was to make the viewer, who ultimately interacted with it, very uncomfortable, and while they were interacting with it, make them feel a sense of entrapment, which is obviously reminiscent of rape. When thinking of how to present these ideas to my viewer, I knew immediately that I wanted my viewer to come to the place where my best friend was sexually assaulted and have to place themselves in the same space - a bed. To achieve this sense of uncomfort, I made a headboard and footboard for my bed and covered them with nails, screws, bits of broken glass, and other materials such as chicken wire that in a tactile sense looked rough and harsh. To give this a little bit of contrast though, I weaved lace around the outside of the headboard.
To give the viewer a sense of entrapment, I also put chickenwire along the sides of the bed, as well as cut out in shape of a human body in a foam pad that was placed under the bedding so that when the viewer interacted with the piece by laying on it, they literally sank into the bed. I also then stained this impression of a body with different teas, which left over an ugly brown stain, and in the center of the body there was a big red splotch. The idea of a marked and very noticeable impression was especially important to me to portray to my viewer because an event like this leaves a huge impression on one's life, and the effect of the staining of the body was to show the permanence of this impression as well. To relate this further to what happened to my best friend, the impression left on her from the person who sexually assaulted her is even deeper that you can imagine because she has to see the male who raped her every single day. And he lives in the same dorm as her. There is literally not a day that has gone by since what happened to her that she hasn't encountered him in some way, shape, or form.
Finally, when laying on the bed, not only does the viewer have nails and broken glass in their peripheral vision, they finally hear the voice of a girl - my best friend - talking about her experience with rape. This voice came from a recording that I took of her, which I hid under the pillow. It was meant to be played just loud enough for the viewer to hear it, but also just soft enough for them to have to struggle to hear it as well - another component to add to their unease and discomfort. I wanted the viewer to feel completely and entirely uncomfortable with where they were, but at the same time feel forced to stay in the position in order to hear the voice speaking to them.
My friend also gave me the exact outfit that she was wearing the night she was sexually assaulted. And I used these garments to add to the piece as well. The garments were strewn across the piece in a way that is meant to even further make the viewer aware of her presence there. Not only can the viewer now hear her voice, but they are surrounded by her clothes, and this I think, makes the viewer really put themselves in her shoes and further understand her situation.
I do think that my piece was very successful in making the viewer very uncomfortable, as well as making them aware of their body in a place that usually represents a place of rest and peace and comfort, but which had been transformed into a place where they do not want to be. When presenting it to the class, no one at first wanted to get into the bed, so I think that maybe I could have done something else to allure the viewer to the bed, so that they would know without me directly telling them that laying in it was what they had to do.
Something though that I also really wish I could have done would have been to have this as a public installation, like some suggested in the critique. One of the main problems of people who are raped, is that they keep it to themselves. They don't let others know about it because they are scared, embarrassed, and ashamed. They feel 'dirty' and 'used' - these are words that my best friend used to describe herself in the recording, and it is so hard to let others know about this because they don't want to be judged anymore. They just want to feel 'normal' again, even though normalcy after an event like this is not something one can go back to, but instead must create again, because something like this cannot be erased or taken back. If the piece were a public installation, it would let more people here know about what is going on. People here are so ignorant of things like this, and I believe that one of the ways to overcome sexual assault is to confront in some sort of public forum and to no longer treat the subject as taboo.
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