Synthetic nylon tulle, acrylic paint, thread, video projection, 2022.

Constructed from countless spools of synthetic nylon tulle, Ballerina Music Box is an installation created through a process of layering, pleating, gathering, tasseling, and hand sewing fragments of painted tulle into a multilayered form. Details of the stitches, layers, and folds are revealed through the warm overhead lighting and cast shadows on the wall. Engulfed inside the fabric formed space is a video projection of a wind-up music box with a ballerina figurine spinning on an axis. She wears a tulle tutu with a long trail that wraps up and around her body as she spins to the repetitive melody of Tchaikovsky’s "Waltz of the Flowers" (1892) from The Nutcracker. Eventually she becomes engulfed in tulle, rendering her un-perceivable to the viewer.

Ballerina Music Box questions the image of the American ballerina as a cliché and stereotype, utilizing materiality to locate agency in a body that is otherwise highly objectified and idealized in Western culture. The ephemeral, fluffy, and fluid qualities of tulle become a point of power that rebels against the rigid definitions of femininity that tutu fabric has once traditionally represented, and thereby imposed on its wearers.