Pandora’s Snatch

Pandora’s Snatch (2022-2023) is an augmented reality sculpture originally made for the #MakeUsVisible project for Women’s History Month in New York City (2022)  as one of 31 virtual monuments of gender diverse figures juxtaposed against physical statues of men across the city. The curators of #MakeUsVisible, XR Ensemble and Katie Peyton Hofstadter, are challenging the lack of gender diversity in the city’s public spaces.  91% of the city’s 150 statues depict men. By honoring the millions of people of marginalized genders living there, they hope to inspire new ways to be seen in NYC and transform public spaces into sites that reflect and represent our diverse values. Here is the XR Ensemble project page: https://makeusvisible.io/artist

To view the AR sculpture Pandora’s Snatch please click this link using your mobile device. The link will not work with a computer and you must have Instagram installed on your mobile device: https://www.instagram.com/ar/701400011240271/

Pandora’s Snatch is meant to be opened by the Prometheus statue in Rockefeller center where Pandora rises from the earth as a giver of life and pleasure. The project reframes the myth that links the two artworks: When Prometheus gave fire to men on earth, Zeus was angry. In an act of vengeance, he created the first woman, and sent her with a jar full of trouble. But his misogyny backfired as Pandora-earth-goddess brought the cycles of life and death and the promise of a beginning wherever there is an end. Love to Mary Beth Edelson and Nancy Spero for power. Pandora is all-gifted, the first woman of earth and water, and she-who-sends-up-gifts-and-vengeance.