Rupture
Tongue-in-cheek yet somber, this feminist installation of a garden of piñatas started with a prompt to the public:
If you were a piñata cracked open, what objects would fall out?
Over 300 objects were submitted through an open poll before the piece debuted in Land That I Love, Cecil’s 2023 exhibition at the Albany Museum of Art.
The objects in Cecil’s piñatas allude to women’s light-hearted pleasures to debilitating setbacks. The “piñata fillers” included in the first iteration of the installation were those most frequently submitted through the poll. They broadly relate to reproduction and meeting expectations, as well as things that bring us joy, help us cope, and give us grit.
Many of the fillers were contributions from individuals who mailed Cecil their birth control pill packs, IVF drugs, dolls, mementos, and more from across the country. Together, they lay in heaping piles resembling altars beneath the crepe paper-covered fruits and flowers that symbolize women’s bodies.
Similar to hitting open piñatas at celebrations, the work reminds us how aggression can be turned into entertainment, blurring the line between loving something and destroying it. The parallel to the way society treats women has stood out to Cecil since childhood.
