86 Reasons

Early asylums were brutal places for women. This collection explores how and why women were sent to asylums and the botched diagnoses and treatments they received. Straightjacketed women, some with gold masks and others with birds stare blankly forward other women are entrapped and disappearing into their bed sheets. There are championship cup trophies to male medical misogyny, hands holding souvenir coins that remind viewers that for a shilling the public could visit European asylums - just for fun. Jumbo teeth wrapped in porcelain-coated gauze and razor-thin porcelain teacups complete the collection.  Finally, tintype photographs of artist as asylum patient dressed in authentic clothing from the 1800’s illustrate the artist's complete immersion into the series.