WHY I'm asking for $$$$$$

I have been given an amazing opportunity to attend the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture this summer for 2 whole months of uninterrupted work and study. My dream come true! In applying to Skowhegan, I proposed (among other things) working on specific pieces that would develop my short film, How Mata Hari Lost Her Head and Found Her Body into an installation, giving me the opportunity to expand my production and exhibition method off the screen and into the gallery context.  However, even after receiving a very generous scholarship to attend Skowhegan, I have depleted my funds on the rest of tuition, transportation, and the assurance that I will not be homeless when I return to Brooklyn. I fear the whole point of going is being lost to financial concerns- that I will not be able to afford the materials necessary to make the projects I intended to work on. This is why I'm asking for the generosity of some kind souls to help me make this happen, and offering incentives to express my extreme gratitude for any donations.

The Project

Public Body (working title) is a project composed of both an interactive performance video and a set of sculptural pieces that will expand upon one of the key conceptual threads already at work in my award-winning film, How Mata Hari Lost Her Head and Found Her Body (now available to watch on Vimeo during the duration of the Kickstarter Campaign: https://vimeo.com/28915077).  Briefly, the film is an historical fantasy, a biography of the archetypal femme fatale re-imagined according to her corporeal afterlife.  After her execution for double espionage in World War I, Hari was decapitated, her body donated to anatomical study for dissection, and her head displayed at the Musee d’Anatomie.  The installation I’m proposing would seize upon the history of Mata Hari’s body becoming “public” under criminal status and transformed into an object of exhibition and scientific exploration- at once warning the viewer of the consequences of transgression, while simultaneously producing the medical institution as an agent of voyeurism.

The proposed project would incorporate projected video as a sculptural element, and make use of repurposed media devices- some near-obsolete, some with medical connotations- as a means of exhibition. Any funds collected from Kickstarter would go towards the purchase of the following items (among others):

(used) video projector
palm-sized mini projector
(used) phonograph player
glass panels
wax (in bulk)
casting materials

fiber optic thread

pigskin