Stall Talk, Undergraduate Research Grant

During my last year of college I had the opportunity to participate in an Undergrad research grant. Any student, from any college can write a proposal of why their project should be funded.

I used eggs to represent women and the red LED light to represent an incubator. Adhered to the inside of each egg is a comment left in a woman's restroom, also known as bathroom graffiti. These eggs are placed in a grid like pattern, there are nine rows, with twenty eggs in each row. The eggs are suspended on two layers of plexiglas that hangs on the wall.

These images were taken of the finished project at our collective BFA show.

Here are some excerpts of my thesis to help better explain the project:

"I had three main goals when conceptualizing and executing this project. By exposing and working with this found commentary my first goal was to start to unfold and understand a young woman’s experience in an attempt to fully appreciate all of our unique existences. At the same time I wanted to relish and indulge in the variety and complexity wrapped up in each comment. And lastly, I hoped that this exposure of personal writings would provide comfort to young women, the way it had for me."

"The commentary itself consisted of much variety but commonality at the same time. Some were confessions or secrets and others were just thoughts. Some were quotations from people such as Martin Luther King Jr., Ghandi and even The Bible. Overall, issues of religion, self-esteem, sexuality, relationships, loneliness, lack of purpose and struggles with depression were most rampant."

"The eggshell is simple at first glance. It's valued and recognized for its purpose, to protect and foster the potential young that grows inside of it. Eggshells house the means for new life. The eggshell is also self-sacrificing, giving up its perfect smooth shape in order to birth the young that has safely grown inside. After sacrificing itself during the hatching process, the eggshell is easily disposed of, forgotten, and seen as useless. Its value seems to go no further than its purpose. After the eggs are cracked and the soft insides are taken out of the eggshell, the egg takes on a completely different type of beauty. We can take it apart, disassemble it and truly appreciate the delicacy and beauty of the egg. The cracks, the malleable inner lining and texture all of sudden become more noticeable and appealing. The eggs are still beautiful, so beautiful in fact that they deserve to exist without their reproductive purpose.

Just like the commentary became gems and ornaments the eggshells did as well. At the very start of this project I began saving eggshells just as I did the bathroom commentary. I cracked them, cooked the innards and then carefully washed the inside walls of the eggshell in hot water. After they were carefully washed, I dried the insides, pieced the two halves together and wrapped them in saran wrap. By wrapping them in saran wrap, with all intentions of keeping them safe, they became a remnant or evidence of existence for that individual egg. This existence is similar, nearly parallel, to that of the bathroom writings. The eggs were then placed back into the carton that they came from. I made a point to treat these broken eggshells just as I would brand new eggs. Their importance may not be based on purpose but the importance still remained. The eggshells were just as important without their nutritional value. Before too long I had a mound of egg cartons filled with saran wrapped eggshells, objects that are not usually cherished.

The process of taking unacknowledged, but important commentary and saving it through photographs and handwritten lists is parallel to wrapping unwanted eggshells in an attempt to protect and save them. The eggshells and commentary are alike in nature, unwanted and usually easily discarded or erased.

I relate an egg’s existence directly with women, they are so wonderful and beautiful that they deserve to exist and live even when not meeting society's expectations or designated purpose. When a woman’s reproductive purpose is forgotten about, she becomes beautiful in her own individual way, allowing her to grow and live in her own fashion. When the eggshell has been parted from its original purpose it begins to exist for a whole new purpose, a purpose that is not based on reproduction or even potential nutrition. The eggshell begins to exist for itself, absent of value to anyone who might have used them before.

"My decision to house the commentary inside these broken and brittle eggshells was at first a mystery to me. I knew I valued the commentary for its documentation and I also knew that eggshells had a relationship to women. The combination of the two was a gap that I was trying to understand or define throughout this whole process. After understanding that both of the materials, the eggshells and the bathroom commentary, were both unwanted I realized that by placing them together I created new purpose and permanence for both.

By placing these bathroom stall quotes inside these broken egg shells the eggs become an incubator. The egg is giving the writing a place to be protected and housed. Each comment gives the egg new life, purpose and individuality. The eggshells are now reliquaries for this commentary, housing the delicate, scripted strips of paper. Because the conventional purpose has been taken away there is now new space for new purpose. The releasing of the insides begins a whole new reason for existence and along with that a new way of thinking. "

"For me it is essential that all commentary be accessible and readable to the viewer, not just me. The conceptual relevance of placing the commentary inside these eggshells would be lost if the writing was not legible or readable. My goals of unfolding and uncovering a young woman's experience and therefore appreciating a unique existence would no longer be possible for anyone else but me. Also, leaving these illegible would not have allowed the commentary to live as a comforting mechanism for others. Lastly, in order to appreciate this commentary and the variety and complexity it entails, the writing must be accessible. The readability was important but I also understood that providing this accessibility might diminish the aesthetics of the actual sculpture. To insure that this display would not compromise or combat the sculpture I decided to display the commentary in a very simple, small way. There are nine lists that hang in rows of three to the right of the sculpture. These nine lists represent the nine rows of eggs. Each row consists of twenty eggs and therefore each list corresponds with twenty quotations."