Embodied Experience: 

"A fronte praecipitium a tergo lupi," a precipice in front, wolves behind

Embodied Experience is a body of work of photomontages made from digital negative contact prints mixed with unaffected descriptive text of women as merely an operative human rather than one with autonomy and self. Thinking of artworks by Martha Rosler and Barbara Kruger, in creating this work I was looking at gender and how it factors into labor, consumerism, ownership, and the responsibilities unconsciously assumed by women in American society. For example; the role of birth control, who buys it, administers it, plans for it, pays for the birth control and who ultimately pays for it, giving birth or not, for the duration of their life span, is women.

I looked deeply at my own burden since birth of where motherhood would fit into my life and how since I became a sentient being. Having to grapple with finding a day or time for it when I was young and now struggling to feel valued as a woman who did not have children at all.

All this time, I had to be more than just a vessel to this world. Right? Social values in America are obscured and thinly veiled. In the end, America expects all women to want and to have children. Even if they die in the process.

Embodied Experience was created for HUQ: I Seek No Favor, a collective artist action in response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Embodied Experience conveys my commitment to using art as a tool for social critique, challenging viewers to question the status quo and recognize the power dynamics at play in their own lives. Specifically, Embodied Experience is a social critique of American values.

Photomontage, photography, digital negatives, type, condoms, birth control pills

Cyanotype on watercolor paper and related packaging

File Under: Arts activism, social commentary, status quo, power dynamics