Fluxus Box

Life in a Suitcase

Cardboard, Fabric, Cotton Batting, Spray Glue, Acrylic, Glitter Glue, Paper, Felt, Altered Children's Toys, Altered Children's Clothes

13.5” x 5” x 19”

This piece was inspired by the movie The Florida Project (2017). It consists of a cardboard suitcase filled with little girls clothes and eight objects each in some way significant to themes or imagery in the movie. Each object is housed in a piece of clothing, representing how Mooney, the main character, has to compartmentalize pieces of her life even as a child. Some objects are representational, like the felt marijuana leaves and a castle painted purple to resemble the motel Mooney lives in. Other objects are not as straightforward. There is a dollar store mermaid doll that looked similar to the toys Mooney plays with in the bathtub while her mother is in the other room trading sex for money. The doll visually resembles her mother, so I took the mermaid tail off and placed fake hundred dollar bills inside the doll to replace the missing limb. There is a toy phone with a violent message exchanged between Mooney's mother and her mother's best friend, mimicking their physical display of violence in the film.

There is an old flip-flop with rocks on the bottom painted to look like asphalt. It represents how Mooney, and many others in her community, are not socially mobile and at times are in some ways not physically mobile since they don't always have access to cars and must walk nearly everywhere they go. The perfume bottle has hot glue dripping from the top of the bottle, representing tears that flow down into the words "you can't be here". This calls back to how Mooney's mother sells perfume out of a plastic bag in the parking lots of fancy hotels and is run off by security. Handmade Minnie Mouse ears appear in the box to show the influence of Disneyworld in the film and how Mooney may desire to go to Disneyworld, but cannot afford it, so she can only access it through fantasy. Finally, there is a small glass jar filled with water. On it is written the time stamp of when Mooney finally breaks down into tears before being taken away from her mother at the end of the movie, letting out all the stress and pain she has been holding in throughout her experiences in the film.

In Process

Background Research

The Florida Project

Casting Process

Toy Phone

Comments

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Allison Davis

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