Untitled (t-shirts)
Paper and steel
3’ wide posters at variable lengths
2017
These posters are documentation of a performance. The performance took place on the last three days of every month. During the performance I visited surrounding malls and tried on shirts with different phrases. I tried on every shirt that the store had in that style in the fitting room where I took a selfie. Documentations of two months are present in the installation photo.

I walk into a store at the mall and see a shirt. The shirt says “more self love.” This shirt is telling me to give myself more love. I walk further through the store and see that I need to be reminded that “I am a human”, that “I am somebody”. I need to tell everyone around me that “I kinda care, kinda don’t”, that “I am a "fearless independent original and a woman”. I need to tell people that they need to, “be brave”, “be strong”, and “save the world”. I need to remind women that the only way they can be powerful is by first being a “babe” and by second being “emotionally unavailable”. I need to empower people that they are “the change: and that “women are the revolution.” And of course I need to realize that I can “never be too over dressed or over educated” because consumption and knowledge go hand in hand.

Wait, do they? They don’t. Right?

What does it mean to conflate those two things? What does it mean for these reminders, aspirations, and motivations to be made on clothing, purchased, and worn? How does capitalism commodify our (especially young women’s) desires for individuality, self preservation and community? How does that intertwining confuse our understanding of these ideals?