project image
Jenna Smyth
FRAGILITY

first performed on February 16, 2021
Illinois State University, Normal, IL
performed once in 2021

MOLLY ROTH

Normal, IL

FRAGILITY
MOLLY ROTH

For this six-minute performance I start in an all-white outfit. I then present a set of sharp, wire lungs and hang them around my neck. I insert condoms filled with acrylic paint into the lungs. As they hit the wire they pop, staining my pure, white clothes. The room was silent as the needle punctured the condoms, then the splash of paint onto the floor as the audience gasped. I interacted with the audience when some of the condoms did not break. This performance brings up the idea of the ephemerality of condoms and life itself. I wear all white as a sign of purity that gets destroyed as the condoms pop, as life can be tainted with a ripped condom during intercourse. The lungs represent the life that can be born when the ephemeral condom breaks. The paint pooled onto the floor, which I interpreted as bloodshed from a situation of abortion. This performance was made to open a conversation within the audience to remove the taboo around safe sex.