The Woman is Present (2021)
CONTENT WARNING: mentions of SA and violence.
The Woman is Present is a public performance work spanning five minutes where I interrupt the space and impede the movement surrounding Medway-Sydenham hall at the University of Western Ontario, the location of recent allegations alleging the drugging and sexual assault of 30+ female students. The University of Western Ontario is also the location of the murder of a first-year student, Gabriel Neil, occurring on the same weekend as the aforementioned allegations.
Inspired by this twitter thread by an O-Week leader at Western University who described people as "dropping like flies," I place my own body in a similar position on the ground obstructing movement in and out of Medway-Sydenham hall. Imposing myself as a female-presenting and identifying person in a vulnerable position on the ground with my eyes closed within this context and location demands the acknowledgement of my presence from those around me in terms of physicality (having to move around me), if not through active engagement. My physical presence forces bodily recognition of my situation as a woman on the ground on the campus of an academic institution, with the people moving around me epitomizing the literal avoidance and lack of attention or support given to student survivors by institutions of higher education.
Informed by my own proximity to victims of campus-based violence, I aim to question the narrative of academic institutions as mythical havens of safety and education, and instead highlight the physical spaces within academic institutions that foster hostility and violence. The academic institution can no longer pretend to primarily nurture individual growth and the betterment of society; its physical embodiment is a place of gender-based violence (as well as other forms of violence) and fear unchecked by weak policy and emboldened by systemic institutional prejudices.