Maria Paschalidou (c) 2006


The idea for the video and sculpture installation Confessions draws from the video Confessions in which different persons narrate, "confess," short stories while sitting on a gynecological exam table. The video is based on recordings of about twenty different persons, including myself, who willingly lied down on a gynecological exam table and narrated a short personal story, or a story they had heard and for some reason, it had a special meaning to them. These video recordings took place in Chicago, U.S. in 2005 and in Athens, Greece in 2006. The twenty participants were both men and women between the ages of 25 - 60 years old. They were of different origins (U.S., Greece, Japan, France) however, they used either English or Greek language for their stories. In Confessions installation the gynecological exam table is used to create a space in which gender displacements and/or other displacements of the subject towards the Other are initiated. The medical table has been deprived from its original purpose as an examination tool to become a vehicle of stories. Its solidity is interrupted by the fluidity of the participants' experiences. The position, in which the participants narrate their stories, with their backs on the table and their feet on the stirrups, manifests power hidden in its openness rather than vulnerability. Back

The idea for the video and sculpture installation Confessions draws from the video Confessions in which different persons narrate, "confess," short stories while sitting on a gynecological exam table. The video is based on recordings of about twenty different persons, including myself, who willingly lied down on a gynecological exam table and narrated a short personal story, or a story they had heard and for some reason, it had a special meaning to them. These video recordings took place in Chicago, U.S. in 2005 and in Athens, Greece in 2006. The twenty participants were both men and women between the ages of 25 - 60 years old. They were of different origins (U.S., Greece, Japan, France) however, they used either English or Greek language for their stories.

In Confessions installation the gynecological exam table is used to create a space in which gender displacements and/or other displacements of the subject towards the Other are initiated. The medical table has been deprived from its original purpose as an examination tool to become a vehicle of stories. Its solidity is interrupted by the fluidity of the participants' experiences. The position, in which the participants narrate their stories, with their backs on the table and their feet on the stirrups, manifests power hidden in its openness rather than vulnerability.

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