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My current installation titled “Tree of Life/Broken and Barren”, explores the pain, isolation, and shame of living with infertility. In this era of female empowerment, have we really escaped the societal pressures and accompanying  feeling of failure in being forced to adopt the role of a "traditional women"?

 

The “Tree of Life/Broken and Barren” depicts an idyllic children’s park with picnic basket, tree swing, and a white layer cake spread across a grassy turf.  These bucolic symbols of familial happiness deconstruct into the harsh realities of living with infertility. The barren tree, devoid of reproductive life, dangles empty syringes, a swing, made from hormone pills hangs lifeless from the branches, while a white layer cake, constructed from diapers and mini baby bottles, sits atop a medicine cabinet filled with liquid progesterone.  “The Egg Machine”, a pair of life-size legs with colorful eggs pouring out between them, reduces the female body to the function of making eggs. An empty children’s chair sits next to a silver toy chest projecting  “Kids’ Tales TV” while we hear voices of women and men telling personal stories of their own struggles with infertility.