Holli Garrido

Julie D. Hicks

17 March 2012

Response 6

Guilty, or not Guilty?

Roam the city streets at night, catching only glimpses of a woman as she leaves or enters

bars, motels, or rounds street corners in front of you. Where is she going, or better yet, what is

she fleeing from? That’s the idea in Idan Levin’s exhibit appropriately named Woman on the

Run on display at SECCA (South Eastern Center for Contemporary Art) in Winston-Salem, NC.

Oddly tucked away at the end of a neighborhood, and outside the cobblestone walkways and

large, ancient trees line the path into the museum. It is warm out and the people working at the

desk are equally welcoming. I’m a little surprised that I have never been here before, having

grown up in Winston-Salem and been an avid arts enthusiast as long as I can remember. Of

course the exhibit I am here to see is quite the opposite of a sunny day among the trees behind

suburbia. The room is dark, partially due to the old age of the building and also to the mood the

display is hoping to evoke from its visitors.

The exhibit is made up of several mediums, including visual artwork, a life size

construction of a city, video clips starring Tracey Snelling as the woman on the run, and

photography of quintessential places or views of 1950s America. Inside one of the many

auditoriums of the SECCA building there has been several street corners and a motel constructed

in dim lighting, with the only source of light coming from inside the windows or from the

fluorescent street signs. Within the windows it alternates between film clips, still photographs,

and 3-dimensional dioramas of some stage of the action. Walking throughout you really do feel

like you are a night crawler in the 50s.

At the time I went I was the only one in the exhibit, giving the mock city an abandoned

and hushed feeling, since the only other form of movement was from the video clips playing

from within windows or doors of certain buildings, all of the same woman. From start to finish

there are a series of clips that fit together in some sort of sequence, enough so that you can

assemble a storyline but not clear enough to develop a conclusion. The exhibit is designed to be

open ended, giving the viewers a first-hand experience and leaving them to decide if the woman

is guilty or innocent. The character has been accused of murdering her husband, however no

concrete evidence has been found so as to convict her. One of the most striking elements of the

story is the motel room where the woman in question chooses to stay. Unlike the other

buildings, this one is an actual room that you can enter and explore, and eerily furnished to the

point that I was hesitant to enter. Black and white television plays news clips, the suitcase

containing her blonde wig and clothes lays open on the bed, black heels thrown in the corner,

lace bra on the door knob. The lights from the street outside shine through the window, casting

harsh orange lines over the bed, the carpet and ceiling are even spotted with what appears to be

soot, and the wallpaper is tearing in places. Never before have I seen a more convincing set up,

needless to say I was not keen on staying long, as I am still the only person in the exhibit. At the

end of the block there was a small replica of the exact street I had just wandered, except this one

was only about a foot high, as if the focus had been zoomed far out giving a distant view of the

city. I marveled at this for a moment, both at the miniature details which I’m sure were harder to

create, and at the full path of the thing, to get more clues on where the woman could have ran

and what route she chose. This bird’s eye view allowed my mind to wander and consider other

cities like this one, and the lifestyle of the past.

Living in the 1940s and 50s, women were not in charge, they did not have any sort of

power, and they certainly didn’t have individual rights. Not until the 1960s did a revolution pick

up, stirring issues and controversy, but even today women make less than men in job fields that

are practically identical in skillset and work level. Back then what kinds of psychological

pressures were put on women living in the city, in suburbia, anywhere really, that led them to

make radical decisions. After being obedient for decades, what mental switch went off to spark a

revolution, or in particular, cause the woman in the exhibit to flee her home and possibly commit

murder? If she was guilty, perhaps it is because her husband was cruel or abusing, maybe he was

cheating. However most cases stemmed from seemingly normal homes, the husband does not

hurt or belittle his wife, yet she feels smothered, desperate, and even angry that she is viewed as

so below her husband by just about all of society. Put enough pressure on someone and it’s no

wonder they eventually make radical decisions. Before the women’s rights movement there

were no options for self-fulfillment or individual happiness, nothing short of running away or to

some women, eliminating their husbands and therefore an obstacle in the way of their own

achievement. I’d like to think there were safe, legal ways for women to be happy and live their

own lives, but I have heard many more stories in the opposite view, so it is hard to determine just

how frantic the situation was.

Of course, I had to try and figure out the story of this particular case, while it is entirely

fictional I wanted to know, was she innocent or guilty? I walked the length of the room two or

three times, starting from both ends just in case that offered a different perspective on the events.

Studying the clips and the order they went in I do not think she murdered anyone; it appears she

simply escaped from a stressful, mentally destructive situation in the best way she could.

The first clip shows her sitting on a bed, in her home I assume, going between crying into

a scarf and drinking from a flask. She seems to be composing herself, getting ready to make a

choice she knows will be life changing, something she can’t undo. The next clip shows her in

the bathroom, packing her clothes and dressing in a blonde wig as a disguise. The idea it seems

is to escape the building unnoticed, undetected by her husband or anyone who might know her

and try and interfere, perhaps even tell her man. The next sequence shows her getting a drink at

the bar, complete with sunglasses, a head scarf, and the blonde wig so that put together, you can

hardly see her face, let alone identify her. She simple gets her drink at the bar and leaves, and

after that there are no clips, but the life size motel room is next on the street. Here we find the

open suitcase and the disguise has been abandoned, so this must be her hideout. In the motel she

is able to breathe, to relax even if only for a moment and compose herself for whatever comes

next. I can only imagine she felt trapped, powerless, and a need to escape no matter the method

of doing so.

Assemble all of these clips together and nowhere do I see a scene where she could have

killed anyone. She does not appear to have a weapon nor did she have the time to do anything

with the body, and I can’t imagine she would just leave it lying around. I can conclude that the

motel room is her final stop, her hideout; why else would she ditch the disguise if the job was

unfinished? More than the technicalities, the mental forces behind such rash decisions are

fascinating. What leads someone to become so desperate that they leave all they’ve ever known,

to abandon the normalcy and hopefully create a better life for themselves. I have not led a

particularly trying life, with no real difficulties that would push me to such extremes, so I can

only use my imagination. With a focus in criminology in my future, I really do hope to better

understand these women, these people, who run away, potentially commit murder or acts of

violence. What makes them tick, and what makes a humble housewife become a woman on the

run.