Synthetic nylon tulle, fluid acrylics, gloss medium, nylon ripstop, thread, air, inflatable blowers, potions made from expired makeup pigments, lotions, shampoos, cleansers, hair gel, bath bombs, vaseline, nail polish, baby oil, wax, imitation pearls, iridescent beads, 2023.

In a time and place where one feels powerless to the rules, regulations, and boundaries imposed on girls’ and women’s lives and freedoms, I draw upon magical thinking and ritual as cultural phenomena embraced and enacted during American slumber parties of the 2000s. From mixing potions with bathroom products to playing games such as “light as a feather, stiff as a board,” I see my perpetual interest in magic as symbolically resonant with the complex, multifaceted experience of adolescence on the cusp of adulthood: discovering self-awareness while contending with societal expectations. 

Levitate (ʇɐolɟ ǝǝɹɟ) is a space for wishful thinking to take form; a place to exercise autonomy, exist in-between, and become and unbecome, individually and collectively. The installation features handmade inflatable sculptures I call breathing beings, informed by the female body and references such as criss-cross-applesauce, kneeling, Venus of Willendorf, perfume bottles, rococo vases, and headless mannequins. They gather with intention, ritually levitating into formless femme spirits, each carrying an offering of homemade potions to actualize the ritual.

The hovering tulle represents the transformation of a levitated spirit. Layers are bathed in paint and intuitively stitched, mended, and pierced by hand to evoke a bodily presence. Its materiality confronts labor, subjectivity, and contradiction as a manifestation of lived experience. Cast shadows extend the work beyond its physical state, creating ephemeral drawings.

As an experimental ritual, Levitate (ʇɐolɟ ǝǝɹɟ) explores magic as a way to imagine a new embodied experience, where the pursuit (and struggle) to defy gravity becomes a metaphor for girls’ and women’s continual resistance to patriarchal structures.