Molded, 2024

Mold Pressed Pluped Memoirs

As an invited participant in Reproductive Arts at the LookOut Gallery, I displayed paper pots and pans alongside one of my memoirs about my reproductive journey with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. Through intimate details of my life, I express different aspects of identity within larger cultural narratives of insensitivity. I reflect on how storytelling in the Ozarks engages with the outside world and pushes back against stereotypes that label Ozarkans as backward hillbillies. However, storytelling can also reinforce misrepresentations. My community often tells stories upholding traditional thought, portraying the ideal woman as heterosexual, cis-gendered, and bound to familial and religious roles. This ideology is reflected in recent conservative regulations in the South that restrict the freedoms of women and the LGBTQ+ community. By using my writing as material in the studio, I turn sculptural form into a type of redaction. My memoirs explore themes of womanhood, the female body, reproductive rights, religious trauma, and assault.

Curated by Elizabeth Horn and Dr. Robin Silbergleid for The ART of Infertility