Wedding Dress Video- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kv9Uus8IZw0
I created this dress as a response to my experience of the expected American Dream for a woman. The wedding dress is a symbol of the “American Dream” that was projected onto me since I was a little girl. I was 5 years old when a 40 something-year-old man cornered me in a room at my elementary school’s Holiday Bazaar. He grabbed my hand and asked me to marry him. I giggled and said yes. Now, as a young woman, I am still plagued with the question at every family party “ Why aren’t you married?” It has been ingrained into me that no matter what I wear, say, or do, I have grown up in a world where I will be seen as, and expected to be, a future wife.
The wedding dress will be made of 345 female bodies. There are currently 73. Each of the 345 figures will represent 100 of the 34,560 domestic violence calls per day in the United States. I want to use the wedding dress as a mirror for people to see the reality of being a “domestic partner.” I want the dress to expose the painful truth behind the closed door of the American wedding dream by using the bodies as a symbol for each call of domestic violence.
The dress addresses the themes of giving women a voice to their own stories, gender roles and expectations, domestic violence, women’s work, women’s craft, sexual relationships, virginity, and the American dream.
Process Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pe2hgR7Do54
Wedding Dress- Made from steel and aluminum wire, wrapped in yarn and dipped into handmade kozo and flax paper pulp, tied back together on steel wire form. Gown is life size.