The threat, and eventual demonstration of physical pain is a strong coercive act. The listener may not be able to trust the confessions given but the pain is real.

Parable for Hysteria is an introspective examination on culturally conditioned aspects of femininity within the domestic sphere. Contrasting the realm of the home with photographic images alluding to mental or physical pain, the two fold nature of domesticity in contemporary life is exposed as mundane and burdensome, yet self-enforced. With no one else present, the subject becomes their own judge, jury, and executioner.

Aptitude in traditional feminine faculties are tied to the ability to maintain hearth and home. The ideal of “True Womanhood” may have been abandoned or radicalized for many, yet numbers are still indoctrinated with ideals held from the 1800’s. Self-imposed expectations learned from the dominate cultural subconscious is louder than feminist inclinations. The subject is not told what to do but is compelled. Like a captive, she falls into her own Stockholm syndrome; agreeing to go along with domestic duties to pacify the psychological distress and waning self-worth that goes along with too many dust bunnies left under the couch. The work is not an impulse for martyrdom, as that implies a self-righteousness within every action of the domestic sphere, but a desire to pick apart the cacophony of contradictory voices speaking all at once.

Identity, place, family, and the pandemic--this year's submissions for the Personal Award focused inward recognizing that societal pressures would follow them there. Career versus caregiver, conforming versus chaos, COVID has helped redefine relationships allowing for the normally quiet introspection to become a cacophony of social media updates. Stripping away the sound, the images submitted test the nuances lost in the noise of the new normal.

- Danyelle Means, Executive Director, Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe