Breaching Tool No. 3: Straitjacket For An Embrace

canvas, thread, satin, brass
made in 2017, photographed by Shauna Caldwell in 2022

A garment made for two, Straitjacket for an Embrace renders union as both entanglement and entrapment, comforting and maddening. Invented in a time when mental illness was criminalized, straightjackets have a complex and often tragic history. From asylums to stage magic, they have signified mental and physical isolation, the suppression of one’s agency. In Straitjacket for an Embrace, their meaning is reshaped. The straitjacket becomes a consensual binding to another, an infinite embrace.