Display Home
Some words on my 2022 found object sculpture displayed at the The Village's salon in Brooklyn.
This idea was born when I was helping a very beloved person in my life clean out their living space. We were working on organizing things in their room and dealing with the physical side effects of mental illness ie: not having the mental energy to keep their home organized and clean.
While we were cleaning, I saw a bunch of empty pill bottles. Like a lot. This collection of bottles was years in the making. When I see a multiples of an item I'm not used to seeing in large quantities, it really affects me (for example, I'm addicted to Gatorade at the moment and right now there is a pile of about 15 empty Gatorade bottles next to bed and every day I think....is this art? WHAT DO THE GATORADE BOTTLES MEAN???). So, when I saw all these empty pill bottles together, I was thrown. Speechless. It was such a feast for the eyes and heart in so many different ways. I asked why they hadn't just tossed them in the trash. They told me they had concerns about privacy. The bottles had their name, address, and Rx. In each tiny sticker, was the story of what was wrong inside them. It was a vulnerable and scary idea, the idea of throwing them away where anyone may see them. I understood, and with their permission I procured the bottles for myself knowing that one day I needed to make something out of them. The image of all of them together was too arresting to ignore.
I sat with that large pile of bright orange bottles for around two years. It was such a special project to me that I wanted the product to be as impressive as the initial feelings I had in their owner’s bedroom. I came to discover that many of the prescriptions were meant to counteract one another. Prescription A had such extreme side effects of nausea that prescription B needed to be taken so they could eat. Or, prescription C made them so anxious that prescription D had to be taken to calm them down. So with side effects, one prescription can quickly turn into four new prescriptions. It all reminded me of the quote from the musical Next to Normal, "Is medicine magic? You know that it's not // We know it's not perfect but it's what we've got // It's all that we've got."
Being a person who had taken medication since college, I could relate. Side effects were brutal. Medicine is never black and white. And it can be frustrating and painful. But how grateful I am for the help medication has given me. I don't want to imagine a world without it. Its a complicated endeavor worth the risk in my experience. And it was in that neighborhood of complication and gratitude I felt the inspiration for this piece.
I dumped over 200 empty pill bottles onto a bed. Bed is my place of solace. My safe and dependable home when I don't have the will to get up and be a human. A place I've had to peel the sheets off my skin and beg myself to leave. A place I love and resent.
The bottles represent so many things: the science/art of medication and its side effects, the dependency we humans form with them, and the sheer mystery of it all. The damn marathon of it really. The big pile of unknowing and trust we place in these small capsules and doctors who prescribe them.
Its an ode to depression. Pain. Exhaustion. Despair. Anxiety. Rest. Salvation. Help. Understanding. Mess. Isolation. Collaboration. Breathing room. Results. The ongoing process. Feeling uncomfortable. Shame. Secrets. Anonymity. Fear.
This pile of pill bottles has grown to include many sources. Many dear friends have contributed their bottles to this pile and I am so proud of them for getting the help they need and being willing to share a small part of it with me. These prescriptions have treated Cancer, Anxiety, HIV, Depression, Nerve Damage, Blood Pressure, Steroids, and Hallucinations - to name a few. A list as colorful and varied as anything.
I showed this piece at Salon 4 put on by The Village, in Brooklyn (I love them!! Thank you Village!!!) Seeing people react to it was really interesting. There were people who thought it was just "so cool and weird." Some who laughed at the sheer number of bottles, wondering in humor where the hell I got them all. And one person who refused to look at it after their initial exposure when they walked in. This particular person had seen a glimpse of the bed and was so disturbed by it that they held their hand to their eyes to shield it from their line of sight. I wish I could have talked to this person, but I was intrigued to hear that the piece affected them so viscerally and I still wonder why it was so hard to look at.
The title, "Display Home" comes from a quote by Hannah Gadsby, heard on the TV show, Please Like Me. In the show, Hannah is trying to describe her depression and complicated relationship to medication. She says,
"You take medication to get yourself out of a dark hole but you end up just in a display home on an empty street."
Thank you for reading.
Jane