Forever Sleepover

Forever Sleepover, a solo exhibition at PRACTICE Gallery, was both a fort installation and immersive experience. The concept was inspired by the pre-teen girl ritual of the sleepover party. Sleeping over in a different space, all together, is an adventure for young girls that inspires deviance, confession, intimacy, comraderie... and occasionally even hatred.  I talked with many adult women about their own sleepover party experiences, and found across these experiences some common created rituals, such as playing truth or dare games, movie watching, and various types of confessional and spooky activities within these sleepover experiences. The installation was intended to recapture this through the reflective lenses of adult women, to embody the pre-teen girl within, to imagine a world where adulthood never happened, and to share that experience with other femmes.    

The installation itself was a large, overgrown blanket fort meant to be experienced by climbing inside. I used colors that I associated with girls bedrooms, and also incorporated fabrics from my own childhood, clothes that were part of my life as a young girl.  Mixed in with the fabric pieces are embroideries that depict mid-nineties heroes, emblematic pre-teen images and common acronyms and sayings. Overblown images of love, moody heroines, pop stars, and cheerful salutations written on the bottom of folded notes are all pieces of what reminds me of being the emotional, wistful, and romantic pre-teen I was within the world I shared with my fellow girls. 

For many women, female friendships from childhood hold an intensity rarely recreated in adult life. As we grow older and busier in our lives, sleepover parties give way to our careers, our responsibilities, and our partner relationships. Forever sleepover is intended to reinvent the space of confidential female relationships, for adult women to contemplate and consider those youthful experiences with an adult lens.

The solo exhibition at PRACTICE gallery in Philadelphia occurred in the Fall of 2013 and the monthlong event included a concert from Little Strike, a sleepover party, and a “Cake and Gossip” night to unpack personal histories of sleepover parties. October 2013.