Funder

Graduate & Professional Student Association

Document Type

Presentation

Publication Date

4-18-2026

Publication Title

28th Annual Graduate & Professional Student Research Forum

Publisher

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Publisher Location

Las Vegas (Nev.)

First page number:

1

Last page number:

11

Abstract

170 Silent Stories: Gendered Violence Beneath the American Dream is a presentation drawn from my MFA thesis exhibition, read the fine print, which critically examines how postwar American domestic ideals—particularly those emerging in the 1950s—were constructed through visual culture, policy, and design. The project investigates how the American Dream promised stability, prosperity, and safety while simultaneously normalizing rigid gender roles, domestic containment, and gendered violence.

At the center of the exhibition is 170 Silent Stories (2026), an installation composed of 170 cast-aluminum high heels, each representing a documented domestic violence case in 1950s New York. The high heel, a deeply gendered symbol of femininity and desirability, is transformed into a heavy, industrial material, shifting its meaning toward weight, absence, and memorialization. Through repetition, accumulation, and enforced silence, the work resists spectacle and narrative closure, instead foregrounding the scale and normalization of private violence beneath public ideals.

Together, the exhibition and this installation expose the human cost embedded within the American Dream, asking viewers to confront what these ideals required women to absorb privately in order to function publicly—and how these histories continue to shape contemporary domestic and social structures.

Controlled Subject

Art; Installations (Art); Exhibitions; Sex role

Disciplines

Art and Design | Sculpture | Women's Studies

File Format

PDF

File Size

2510 KB

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Download


Share

COinS