Assumptions: Performative Texts by NWylde 2002

Nanette Wylde
Assumptions: Performative Texts
captured, printed & framed

Portraits
Vino Locale, Palo Alto, California
Septemeber 2008

Slippage: Wording the Thought Bubble
WORKS/San José, San José, California
February 5 - March 6, 2004

Exit Gallery
University of Nevada, Reno
November 3 - 20, 2003

Serra House, Institute for Research on Women and Gender
Stanford University
April 2 - June 27, 2002

About Assumptions

"Assumptions" is a series of over twenty works. Edition of 7 each. Size and framing variable.

"Assumptions: Performative Texts" are printed on an Epson 2000P inkjet printer with Epson archival inks on Epson archival matte paper.

Thanks very much to my collaborators, both conceptually and photographically: Melisa Escarcega, Jennifer Gednalske, Eileen McGarvey, Kent Manske, Nancy Wylde, and Russell Wylde.

Thoughts regarding Assumptions and the making of this work

I am thinking about my/our (sometimes/often) unquestioning willingness to assume we know what someone else is about. Often because of their visual appearance and presence, including the way an individual moves through a space, carries themselves, dresses and talks.

I am thinking about our readiness to judge, our eagerness to typecast.

I am thinking about the preponderance of need to feel that one "knows." This exemplified by the presumption of knowing and being able to predict the all of a somebody when given a small amount of information.

I am thinking about labeling and the language we use to think about each other and ourselves.

I am thinking about how assumptions are often based on fragments of interaction, and how they often become the portrait that we hold as being the reality of an individual.

I am also thinking about the contrast between assuming and experiencing, that is, discovering that an individual's being does not fit with the assumption or stereotype of her physical image/presence or the label we might have assigned.