Soft Sculpture
This piece is an interpretation of a cope, a liturgical garment for ceremonial occasions or a garment that is a part of formal academic dress. “Small Scenes” is embroidered with scenes of violence and hysteria from ancient to contemporary times. Interpretations of the most gruesome martyrdoms of female saints are taken from drawings made from Biblical illuminations in the collection of the Morgan Library and Museum, New York. Other scenes are illustrations of reported incidents of mass hysteria, including the “cat nuns”, the Dancing Plague of 1518, the Salem Witch Trials, the Tanganyika laughter epidemic of 1962, and The Pokémon Panic of 1997. These embroidered illustrations depict times of social friction and conflict, during which populations relied on a delusion in order to cope with stress.