2009 Conceptual Award

2009 Conceptual Award Winner

Life Jacket
Jeffrey Scanlan
New Orleans, LA 

Pillows, necktie, hangers, wood, ratchet

The components of this piece represent the weakness of a professional male, father who desperately constructs a ridiculous apparatus from recognizable materials found around the house that are dense with latent meaning. Their juxtaposition coaxes the viewer into a "psychological place" that one normally would not consider occupying. One becomes the subject of one's own viewing, while contemplating the "act" of committing suicide. This "reflective space" is a comfortable place for one to think about suicide, a subject that never enters one's psyche until it devastates one's life.

The title sets up a contradiction between the life-saving benefits of a life jacket and the act of committing suicide. It also is imbued with a sense of humor with the contrast between the pain of the cable crushing one's ribs and the softness of the pillows. Imagine the tightened cable squeezing the last air out of the lungs, until one passes out and falls to the ground, only to wake up and try it all over again.

 * Photo Credit - Darla Furlani