Megan had been at art school for a couple of years and had also started doing her own performance pieces in the last eight months. She enjoyed being creative and also forcing people to think differently about their shared culture. Her favorite stuff was very transgressive and challenging to the audience.
Her own work generally centered around such things as gender identity and sexuality, how the human interacts with capitalism, power relationships, and individual will. She had been wanting to do something that really challenged people and would perhaps help her make a name for herself as an artist. She had a number of ideas that she had been rolling around in her head, but nothing was jumping out at her.
It wasn't until she was hanging out with another friend who was also really into this type of art that she came up with what she thought might be an interesting idea. They were discussing other older performance artists and some of the work that they had done. An idea came to her that she had to think about some as it was definitely something to really consider before setting it in motion.
She spent a few days pondering the logistics of the whole thing and she decided that she wanted to actually try it. The only challenge at this point was that she would have to get her mother, Allison, on board. It took a couple of days, but she finally worked up the courage to bring the subject up with her mom. Her mother had always been very supportive of her interest in art and in fact had encouraged it from a young age. This was going to require a lot more of a commitment than just being supportive.
When she finally mentioned it to her, she was totally cool about it, but due to the nature of the piece she said she was going to have to think about it for a couple of days. Megan totally understood. This was a potentially dangerous act to engage in. After a couple of days of deliberation her mother, to her surprise, agreed to take part. She was excited but also nervous about the whole thing. This could end up being very awkward, painful, weird, or disgusting. She made sure her mother understood these things.
The basic premise was this. In the performance space, she and her mother would be the performance art subjects. They would both dress in sexy clothing that was skimpy and the audience would be told that for the given duration of the performance they could do anything they wanted to or with either woman. They could also tell them what to do. There would be a number of items available that could be employed in any way that the audience chose. They would also be made aware that the two women were mother and daughter.
The piece was meant to be a commentary on not only the fact that women are not in control of their own bodies often in our culture, but the fetishization of women even in a familial context. Megan had noticed that there was a preponderance of incest related porn and that MILFs and cougars had become quite a popular trend. Essentially she would be challenging the audience to not treat them that way, but she really wasn't sure what kind of results she would get.
On the wall it would say in big letters, "Porn Is Not Life and Life Is Not Porn." The available items were really a mixed bag. There were kitchen implements, house cleaning implements, cosmetics and sex toys. There were a number of other random things as well. She knew that this might turn out very well or very poorly. She thought that she had to give it a try and her mother supported her fully. They were both fairly nervous about it, but were willing to give it a shot.
It took some planning, but she set up a date for the performance and arranged a performance space. It would be in a little over a month, so she started to promote it soon thereafter. She had set it up in a different city so that people that she directly knew wouldn't be likely to show up. This could end up being very embarrassing, so she was just trying to be careful.
Unfortunately about a week before the performance was to take place, the venue where she was going to have it fell through because of some property issues. The city was shutting them down until they made some repairs to the building. This was quite a disappointment, but she didn't let it deter her.
The person who organized events for the original performance space had some suggestions for back up spots. She called one of the places and was able to book the day. The problem with this was that she now had to change the location on the internet and try to put out the flyers quickly. She knew that this would probably lessen the number of people that would actually show up, but she really wanted to go through with the performance still.
Unfortunately for her, this did end up being the case. A number of people were confused now about where it was happening and some people didn't realize that the location had changed. Also there was apathy, as many thought it sounded interesting, but ended up not even trying to show up.
So the night of the performance she and her mother set up in the space and started the show. She had to admit she was disappointed in the new spot as it was in a weird neighborhood and wasn't the nicest looking place from the outside. The space itself was OK, but she was worried that the external appearance and location would deter people.
Again, she was unfortunately right. For the first hour only two people showed up. It was a couple and though they seemed nice enough they were actually kind of jerky. They told her to call her mother all kinds of nasty names while giggling the whole time. Nobody was there to stop them or comment on it so they felt comfortable acting this way.
Before they left they even made her mother take her panties off and put them in her mouth before removing her top and bra. So now her mother was literally wearing a short skimpy skirt only and was walking around with her panties in her mouth. So it hadn't started off great.
The person that ran the event space had shown up and helped them set up, but had another commitment at another space they managed. So there was only an older security guard that was manning the front door of the building. Not that it seemed to matter since almost no one had shown up.
