WHY THIS SHOW?

A note from lead artist Francesca MOntanile lyons

“A while back, I found the diary that I kept when I was 13. It was written almost exclusively in glitter pen. I read it. I was so ashamed that I hid it and pretended it didn't exist. Then I found it again years later. I read it again. I held my breath the whole time. I couldn't believe that I was the same person who wrote those words. I felt intensely embarrassed. As I gathered a team of hilarious women to make the work, others in the ensemble shared similar feelings and offered their diaries as source material too. From there the piece was born.

After studying the source diaries, it became abundantly clear that concerns, questions, and desires around sex were the biggest unifying theme. As adults, we have trouble thinking about and talking about the sexuality of young girls. This silence is damaging. It encourages a culture where young girls learn it's more important to be objects of desire (which leads to increased social status) rather than subjects of desire (which is met with disgust and shame.) More than ever before, there is less separation between the media and pop culture and teenagers, who are forming their senses of self based on representations readily available on the internet and social media. I want to talk about - and laugh about - young sexuality instead of pretending it doesn’t exist like we so often do, leading girls to furiously scribble in diaries or fumble in the dark trying to understand it, afraid to ask a question, feeling shame and confusion about curiosities that are natural. By exposing the secret words we wrote when we were young, I want to let today's young girls know that they are not alone and provide a moment of communal relief/reckoning for those of us who have come out the other end.”