< To Other Projects by Victoria Bradbury

S-WITCH Exhibition at The Front

Project Summary:

S-WITCH, my October 2020 solo exhibition at The Front Gallery in New Orleans, featured prints and a "Let's Play" from Blue Boar VR, as well as new digitally fabricated projection sculptures and a glass artwork.

Project Description:

S-Witch draws upon the familiar exhortation of “she’s a witch”, used throughout history to condemn people who are viewed as straying from the norm, or people for whom it is convenient or profitable to jail or execute. This exhibition features documentation from the artist’s 2019 virtual reality project, Blue Boar VR, which allows players to experience her 10th great-grandmother Mary Bradbury’s 1692 witch trial conviction. At 75 years old, Mary was accused by her neighbors, the Carrs, of having turned into a blue boar, amongst other fantastical crimes. Blue Boar VR can be played from three perspectives: that of Mary (the accused), The Carrs (the accusers) or the fantastical blue boar. A story about violent power structures inherent to a 17th Century New England village is incomplete without considering the broader context of American history in which the artist's ancestor played a part. She was among the first generation of immigrant Europeans to live on lands stolen from the Wampanoag and benefitting from wealth built by enslaved black bodies in the American South. S-WITCH is part of a larger project that aims to present the complexities that power, perspective, privilege and fantasy play in the context of false accusation.

*Digitally fabricated analog projectors.*

In addition to print and video documentation of Blue Boar VR, this exhibition features a new work, a series of six digitally fabricated analog projection boxes that rotate between “SHE’S A” and “SWITCH”, to present a phrase that condemns, accuses and lays blame. The play on words between “switch” and “witch” incorporates notions of switching in a mechanical, electrical and computational sense, but also shifting notions of gender and identity in a complex and changing world.

*S-WITCH, electroformed glass and LEDs.*

This is my first exhibition to include a glass artwork, called S-WITCH, which was made during my Summer 2019 Pilchuck class, "The Glass Electric", which was co-taught with Mark Hursty. This piece is made from blown and electroformed glass and a simple LED circuit causes it to light when the two sides make contact.