Wish List for the Missing Girls of Nigeria

I was honored to be invited to participate in an exhibition entitled “Brains, Boobs, and Backbones,” which was organized by Carla Rae Johnson in order to showcase the responses of women artists to various national and international crises.

As an educator and as a woman, I had been particularly appalled by the abduction of more than 200 female students from their school in Chibok, Nigeria by the terrorist group Boko Haram in 2014.  My interactive performance and installation were designed to call attention to the fact that these girls had never been rescued, despite a world-wide condemnation of the attack.

At the opening reception for the exhibition, I spoke with dozen of individuals about the situation.   At the conclusion of each conversation, I asked the participant to record a wish for one of the missing girls in a notebook designed for this purpose.   This document remained accessible for review and for comments during the two-month exhibition at the Paramount Center for the Arts in Peekskill, NY.

(Reading these comments still brings me to tears.)