Perry Burlingame considers the sociocultural norms that develop and repress sexual identities, focusing on the period of adolescence. Questionable narratives from her past and personal memories coalesce around questions of female purity, self-respect and the idea of “natural” behaviors. Video and digital image interact with sculptural structures, and together the works reference subjects of taboo, kink, and repression. Various barriers, basins, and alters reference control of bodies, the view of the public, toxic ideals of “purity” and the stigmatization that surrounds sexual power possessed by femme individuals.
