Words they called
20x16 inch
Khadi cloth, Artist’s Hair
2020
 

Words They Called is an archival and deeply personal articulation of the language women are forced to endure in public spaces. The project gathers the sexual remarks, slurs, and insinuations hurled at women on the streets—words that often pass as casual or insignificant, yet land with a violence that lingers. These utterances are meant to diminish, to remind women of their perceived vulnerability, and to mark their bodies as public territory.

By collecting these words and stitching them using my own hair, the work transforms this everyday aggression into a tactile and confrontational form. Hair becomes both material and metaphor—an extension of the body that carries memory, absorbing the emotional weight of each encounter. The process of stitching becomes an act of reclaiming, turning insults meant to shame into objects of testimony.

Through these fragile, intimate forms, Words They Called creates a space of quiet resistance. It acknowledges how women’s bodies remember these violences long after the moment has passed, and it stands in solidarity with every woman who has moved through the world and been spoken to this way.