Structure for the Fugitive

Installation completed while in residence at Mills College in 2016 as part of the Art + Process + Inquiry program.

Structure for the Fugitive was an installation centered around seventeen pieces of antique lace in the Mills College Art Museum collection. Over the course of a three month residency at Mills College, I learned about the history of the lace, given over the years by alumni of the school. This lace had become fragile and light sensitive (or fugitive) over the course of decades since their donation. I used these items as the basis for my own research into the history of lace and how lace relates to nets.

For the exhibition I created plaster supportive display armatures for each lace piece and created a gallery within the museum to house these displays. The interior walls of the enclosed gallery were painted lavender–a color typically associated with genteel femininity. Yellow gel filters were added to the glass display case lights to neutralize the walls, washing-out the color's association and creating a ghostly gray.