say something!

These pieces are about communication. They express various states of tension while navigating what to say, and if to even say it. Fixating on the mouths of various beings, I have been creating these wearable pieces that reflect on speaking, listening, and the power dynamics of various voices--including those that are in your own head.

This body of work explores that moment of reckoning when it comes to the words that we choose, embrace, and wear like badges—and those that we don’t, can’t, or won’t.

As brooches, these mouths are meant to say something different with each wearer, and the context may change with that wearer’s environment. They can convey discomfort or frustration, or feelings of being trapped or silenced. They can express anger, rage, and disbelief. They can be a rally cry, a badge of resistance, an act of radical celebration of the undercelebrated. Regardless, they express the discomfort of having something to say but struggling to say it. Coyness, restraint, or oppression are all various readings of this act of emotional expression specifically through these frozen mouths that have no verbal utility but rather function as body adornment and an emblem of complex self-expression.