Padded Room

Padded Room, 1999
Installation with multi-channel video
Dimension: 12’ 4” x 9’ x 13’6”
Courtroom Gallery, Brooklyn New York

This installation, built inside the gallery, exists as a stand-alone womb like environment entered into by crawling on one’s knees. Adult-size silver booties await the viewer at the entrance, to be worn, before moving up the ramp. Inside, an upholstered, padded salmon-colored room, permits lounging but a padded floor makes it is hard to stand. This resembles enclosures made for institutionalized mental patients for the prevention of self-harm. References to the silencing of gendered female mores, infantilize the viewer, by subjecting participants to the concept of being psychologically cosseted and coddled. Silent out-takes, from the artist’s video Desperado, play in oval portals cut into the walls.

Made with the support of Artist’s Space, New York, NY