Make An Effort To Remember, Or, Failing That, Invent

Installation in collaboration with Lauren Grossman and Nina Borgia-Aberle and curated by Nancy Bless; shown at the John Michael Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, 1992

In 1992, Ruth Kohler invited me to create a large-scale installation with artists Nina Borgia-Aberle and Lauren Grossman—we had never met. Still, we shared an interest in feminist histories and the stories that slip between memory and myth. We found a point of connection in Lilith, a figure erased mainly from early texts, and built an environment that imagined the world she might have inhabited.

Visitors entered past small bowls of honey, pomegranate, and grain on small shelves, then stepped into a dark, immersive space of sculptural forms: a floor-to-ceiling cocoon made from remnants of clothing, an anatomical floor sculpture, and a loosely woven twine canopy casting shifting patterns of light. The visitor would pass under to enter. Our works remained distinct yet formed a shared terrain shaped by intuition, material memory, and the desire to reimagine forgotten women.

The installation became an early exploration of themes that continue in my practice—how cloth and cast-off materials hold trace, how space can become a quiet interior, and how the boundary between remembering and inventing is often porous.