Lisa Kokin
Loss of Voice, 2000
2 x 3 1/2 in.
5.1 x 8.9 cm.
5.1 x 8.9 cm.
Unique, signed by the artist.
1528
(40)ff. Found photographs and text are sewn together in order to speak to speaking itself. The photographs all show women's faces, in each instance somehow manipulated, fragmented, or otherwise distorted...
(40)ff. Found photographs and text are sewn together in order to speak to speaking itself. The photographs all show women's faces, in each instance somehow manipulated, fragmented, or otherwise distorted - essentially silenced. Each one concludes an aphorism on "correct" speech, from "The Central Idea" to "Story" to "Combinations," all of which articulate assumptions of rightness and etiquette (and subservience) that condition women's voices in politics, the workplace, and daily life. The alternative, at stated in the first section, is violence: "Almost all normal persons will dominate or kill because of fear." The fear is, of course, that women might be correct after all. Kokin suggests a solution at her final section, "Never Read Poetry," by which, of course, she means the opposite; read, and write, poetry in order to address the unspoken and unspeakable. A playful and profound approach, bound wrappers and held in found lozenge tin. Fine.