Let me out
2005
Let Me Out! is composed of a collection of misogynist, stereotypically sexist images hand embroidered on magenta duppioni silk. The drawing is integrated within a tangled vine pattern, alluding to William Morris wallpaper and to the 1899 short story Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. In this story a woman writer experiencing post-partum clinical depression suffers the medically endorsed “rest-cure” given to women in the late 18th century, which included forced-feeding and isolation. Consequently, she goes mad.
The accompanying audio was inspired by a passage in the Canadian novel Damselfish, by Susan Ourion, in which the protagonist describes a small wind-up toy with a voice---“pounding and tinny”--- shrilly demanding to be let out! Embroidery, a time-consuming historical method, signifies a lady-like pastime of compliance while this embroidery ‘talks back’ in discordant dialogue against the stereotypes it intends to subvert .
