Living Hysterically is an immersive exhibition of multi-disciplinary works that explore women’s lived experience through three generations. This body of work was presented at Georgia State University in March 2019 as an MFA exhibition.
Women’s lives are stories of pain. Our stories are not only pain; a truly complete representation of a woman’s life would necessarily include joy, hope, ecstasy, triumph, love, courage, desire, etc. Like any person, a woman is a full human, capable of all these things. Yet pain is where the center of womanhood has rested for so long that is has become a part of how we understand the world, how the world perceives us, and how the world and the woman function together. The question is how do we, as the world, receive that experience? The answer is and has been for a long time: not very well. Mythology has rendered us suspect. Science has diagnosed us hysterical. History has continuously found us guilty. Our mere existence is reduced to the questions: “Why are you here? What purpose do you serve? And how are you wrong?” Ultimately, our experiences of pain continue to go diminished, yet we continue to struggle, survive, and thrive.
In Living Hysterically each work presents a picture of past, present, and future tied to the specific story of a woman or girl. These stories provide an entry point into the personal experiences, both positive and negative, that feature pain and fill the lives of women. Against a backdrop of social and political history, the work illustrates the forces working in women’s lives that create a spectrum of violence, from the mundane to the traumatic. This work claims space for women’s stories too often denied in public, creating representations that are more complex and thoughtful than the usual discourse. Moving through the installation becomes an exercise in empathy moving towards understanding and change.
