The Institute

Overview

"In creating that split-screen work, Simpson used footage from a promotional film produced by an institute in Wichita, Kansas; there, students with learning and speech disabilities were, presumably, "rehabilitated," which is to say, socialized. On the right side of the screen we see Barbara, a young disabled black woman who has difficulty speaking; on the left side of the screen we see various white women holding children. We hear Barbara in dialogue with a speech therapist; she's claiming or trying to claim her voice and thus her identity. But we don't know what the white women sound like. In the drawings, the actresses are further silenced--they're figures in the silent world of a drawing. But what does it mean to take an actress's voice from her? An actress's voice is her writing, her means of interpretation." -Hilton Als