The Virago Project

Originally I planned to make one sculpture: an enormous sound sculpture of a strong powerful woman —created out of found objects — whose body we would beat upon.

I aimed to express how it is that woman are so often shut down and silenced by society.

“You want to create a virago”, observed a colleague, “a harridan”.

Now I love words and since I was curious about the official the meaning of the term “virago” I had to look it up. What I found sent me on a voyage of discovery that continues to this day.

I set out to explore how each of these Goddesses might merit the appellation “Virago”.

I ended up creating four sculptures, Selene, Artemis, Persephone and Thunderbroad, pictured below.

These sound sculptures were exhibited and performed upon at a number of galleries and performance venues around Toronto, including Art Gallery of Ontario, Music Gallery and Justina M. Barnicke Gallery,