Rocking Red Rocking (1995)

Rocking Red Rocking (1995)

With Elizabeth Stephens

Rocking chairs with words branded into them, hidden motor, sound system, rear slide projections, window screens.

Rocking Red Rocking, a collaboration with Elizabeth Stephens, took place on the front porch of a 19th century house that serves as a campus and community women’s center. Over a 2-month period, we met with the groups who use the center, recording their conversations about hopes, fears, and desires in the age of the “Contract with America.” Their stories were then broadcast on the porch while a line of red rocking chairs (carved with poetry referencing the color red) rocked continuously, propelled by a hidden motor. In the evenings, huge rear view projections, visible from a distance, filled the front windows with images suggestive of the internal and private lives that get disrupted by repressive politics.