Feeling uneasy in your own body

The Merlino Gallery is shrouded in pitch-black curtains on all four walls, and a layer of ceramic teeth covers the entire floor.

A year and a half ago, artist Christine Hudson, a senior ceramics student, was playing videogames when she found out via Facebook that her transgender friend had committed suicide.

“I was so out of whack that I couldn’t do anything,” Hudson said.

Hudson was sculpting ceramic teeth for a different project at the time. As a coping mechanism, she continued to create the teeth without any reason other than to keep busy.

As she made them, Hudson said she knew she wanted to create something with the teeth, but nothing “stuck.” About 2,000 teeth in, she said she had the epiphany of putting the teeth on the floor. Hudson decided to use the teeth for her solo art exhibit in commemoration of her late friend.

As an interactive art piece, viewers are invited to walk on the teeth in order to reach the back wall to view the artist’s statement. Viewers can walk, sit, lay and even make “snow angels” in the teeth.

“The whole point of [viewers] walking on the teeth is for them to feel discomfort in their own body,” Hudson said. “I was trying to put the views in my friend’s perspective.”

Hudson said in her artist statement that her friend’s suicide must have been freedom from “all the people who denied” her friend their “own body” and “own identity.”

Hudson spent six months sculpting ceramic teeth by hand, spending any and all free time making them.

She estimated that she made 125,000 individual teeth, weighing around 15 hundred pounds. Hudson created human incisors, canines, pre-molars and molars out of ceramic clay.

The exhibit has no definite name, but Hudson said the working title is “Grief.”

Hudson said she chose to hang black curtains to give a “mood of memorial.” Hudson kept the reason behind the teeth a secret until the unveiling of her exhibit.

“I wanted to people going in unknowing,” Hudson said. “I wanted to mimic me finding out that my friend committed suicide…I wanted viewers to feel this uncomfortableness.”

Hudson said after understanding the meaning of the exhibit, people see the teeth differently. She said once viewers read the artist’s statement, they treat it as a “super sacred place.”

Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, Hudson said. Many viewers leave the exhibit somber and quiet. She said several feel the need to make physical contact by giving her a hug or a pat on the back “as understanding.”

“I see a lot of people come out, and they want to say something, but they can’t,” Hudson said.

Julia Angulo, a senior photography student said it was overwhelming to have to walk on the teeth just to read the statement.

“Walking in at first is like a spectacle,” Angulo said. “But when you find out the content behind it, it adds a heaviness to the work.”

The exhibit will run through Oct. 23 in the Merlino Art Gallery, in the Fine Art Building.