The Institute, 2007
Single-channel video installation, color, sound
Duration: 5:13 min.
"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... In the drawings, the actresses are further silenced--they're figures in the silent world of a drawing... What interests Simpson in her drawings is her own interpretation, her line of thought reaching from Barbara, who is real, and extending to the white women on the other side of the segregated screen, women who are a performance."
-Hilton Als