A Room Full of Hysterical Women

A series of dressing screens bearing quotes from characters from works of fiction, poetry and theater, characterized as ‘hysterical’, either within the same writing frame or in its criticism. Each triptich, named after a character, has a central panel with a quote from the respective character, a suggestion of itspossible  clothing and its architectural surrounding space at the time the central words were uttered. The material of the panels and the costumes is a very light organza, typical of wedding veils, and the printed quotes and architectural plans are realized in silkscreening technique, with a combination of ink and cement.

Hysteria comes from the Greek word for womb, hystera. Hysteria, a condition associated throughout history with the emotionally excessive behavior of women is a theme explored in this work. It features female characters from various kinds of literature of different genres, cultures, and ages, from Aristophanes’s comedy Lysistrata to Octavia E. Butler’s science fiction novel Wildseed to Anne Sexton’s poem about suicide. The characters make themselves present as constellations of triptych-shaped structures which resemble dressing screens. Each structure includes an allusion to the character—a quote from her speech, a piece of clothing, and an architectural reference to the space the character inhabits at the moment referred to by the quote.

The quotes are angry. The work points out how these protagonists, namely in the manner in which they were presented in cultural artifacts throughout history, have contributed to, mirrored, or problematized the ways in which societies have treated women’s expressions of dissatisfaction and otherwise disciplined the behavior of women deemed inappropriate. Playing with the unstable boundaries between public and private, reality and fiction, the installation of dressing screens, costumes, architectural plans, and literary quotes poses questions regarding hysteria’s link to systemic issues of injustice.
(text by Tereza Stejskalova, Matter of Art Biennale 2022, Prague)

Part of:
Artissima Art Fair 2019, Torino – solo booth, part of Present/Future Section curated by Emilie Villez, Ilaria Gianni and Juan Canela
Ultrasanity 2019-2020, SAVVY Contemporary Berlin, curated by Elena Agudio and Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung
Matter of Art Biennale 2022, Prague, section curated by Tereza Stejskalova

6 characters
Metal, organza, silkscreening
Clothing patterns and sewing: Ecaterina Guzun
Architectural plans: Magda Vieriu
Silkscreening: Octav Avramescu