Portfolio > Soft Sculpture

This wearable sculpture is based on a cope, a liturgical garment or part of formal academic dress. It is also inspired by the word cope, an attempt to overcome problems and difficulties. The cape is embroidered with images of violence and hysteria, times of social friction during which populations relied on a delusion in order to cope with stress. These include the torture of female saints, drawn from medieval bibles in the collection of the Morgan Library and Museum. Also included are incidents of mass hysteria, including the medieval meowing nuns, the Dancing Plague of 1518, the Salem Witch Trials, the Tanganyika laughter epidemic in 1962, and the Pokémon Panic of 1997.