Overclocked
Overclocked traces the lifelong gendered expectation that women carry impossible loads, beginning with a child’s understanding that “the cross all Christians have to bear” includes care and sacrifice, and moving through pregnancy, preparing a newborn for a return to work, and managing business partners’ emotions and bad judgment.
The Cocoons
From the outside, each form appears to be woven layers of yarn and thread, textured and tactile like small protective cocoons. Inside each one, a maker has selected an emotionally significant object, then wrapped and embroidered it to transform the labor and meaning it carries.
Here’s what each cocoon represents, starting from left to right.
1 Hannah Quick
The pregnancy test represents two things:
- The care women give to each other through birth and postpartum (I am a duala).
- The 1 in 8 women who experience infertility and miscarriage. This pregnancy test represents a pregnancy loss.
2 Anonymous
For 18 years, in addition to the work I was paid to do administering an academic graduate program, I coached my boss/partner/co-founder in managing his ego, his emotions and responses to authority.
3 Jesse Martin
Object: Pill bottle cap. Constantly monitoring people's emotional and physical health and adjusting myself and /or their environment / environmental factors to ensure everyone stays happy and healthy, sometimes at the cost of my own emotional well-being.
4 Emily Case
It's a film canister with a detergent pod inside it. Inside of hobbies is all the labor of cleaning and cooking that goes into running a life.
5 Gabrielle Larson
My object is a breast pump piece. Breastfeedling is often marketed as free, which completely undervalues the blood (literal), sweat, and tears that goes into making milk. Pumping while your baby is away from you is especially taxing because it's often done while working. For me, the emotional labor of always planning my day around when to pump, constantly monitoring my stash, planning ahead so my son had enough mils every time I left him was so taxing. Once, my husband left my freezer open and hundreds of ounces of milk defrosted and was lost. I was filled with rage. Hours of work lost. It was such a rewarding experience feeding my sons exclusively from my body for over a year, but it has been the most emotionally taxing thing I've ever done.
6 Mary Delmege
My childhood rosary As a 4-year old, I broke my collarbone. It was set on a wooden cross-shaped brace. As I sat in church, looking up at the crucified Christ, with my own cross, my grandmother's favorite saying "Every Christian has his cross to bear" became literally true for me.
7 Amanda Barney
I have three (3) objects in my cocoon. Item 1. A gender reveal card from my pregnancy with my daughter. I had two miscarriages before my pregnancy with my daughter. This card represents all of the fear, worry, stress I had with my pregnancy because of my miscarriages. Miscarriage is something that is very lonely and quiet and secret, even when you have a partner. Items 2 & 3. Parking garage ticket for a parking garage for a deposition (part of my job as an attorney) and a Sprouts grocery receipt. In a field dominated by men, who often have women at home helping them with everything at home. Being a working mom and breadwinner with a working partner can be difficult at home and at work, where you are doing emotional labor in both places.