Girlhood under Quarantine: A Zoom Call with Gabrielle Civil
2021; University of Nebraska Press; Volume: 42; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/abr.2021.0004
ISSN2153-4578
Autores Tópico(s)Youth Education and Societal Dynamics
ResumoGirlhood under Quarantine:A Zoom Call with Gabrielle Civil Aisha Sabatini Sloan (bio) When quarantine first started, I thought I would get lost in time just like I did as a teenager, when I would sit at the drafting table in my bright yellow bedroom. Back then, I would make collages, listen to Nina Simone, and watch documentaries about jazz musicians. Though I did make a diorama of Jane Goodall looking plaintively toward a chimpanzee amid a backdrop of barren trees and smoke, my fantasies of creative exploration of late have gone largely unrealized. The early days of quarantine were, instead, lost to reruns of Top Chef, and many anxious middle-of-the-night hours spent reading the news. But the memory of how I spent my girlhood felt especially near to me when I sat down for a zoom chat with writer and performance artist, Gabrielle Civil, author of the memoirs Swallow the Fish (2017) and most recently, Experiments in Joy (2019), which was longlisted for this year's Believer Nonfiction award. In a performance event called, Girls in their Bedrooms, orchestrated by Civil and Ellen Marie Hinchcliffe, art goers were ushered into a series of bedrooms. In one bedroom, audience-member Sarah Hollows recalls, "blank pages were hanging… waiting to be filled, containers for lost and forgotten memories." In another room, the art goer might find a "red balloon, the ceramic bust of a young black girl, a bottle wrapped in sequins." In Gabrielle's room, "a bright abstract floral quilt haphazardly made the bed; a stack of books piled high from the floor," and "colored pencils stood in an unopened box." There was, too, an article posted on the wall: "Nigeria: dozens of girls kidnapped," as if to emphasize the degree to which girlhood encompasses a state of innocence, as well as the keen awareness of an impending edge. As Hollows writes, "in the body of a bedroom, the closet beats." My talk with Gabrielle was more playdate than discourse. We talked about nail polish and time travel. Things got astral. Gabrielle recalls feeling, during our chat, a bit like Bjork during that interview where the popstar sits behind a TV with the back cover removed, describing the inner workings of the machine like some secret world. Aisha: I forgot how to know how to be prepared for a conversation. Gabrielle: You were born ready A: But you've done it. G: You mean this? [Holds up computer to show that she is surrounded by a nest of books]. A: And that dress! G: I have not worn a wristwatch, or set an alarm in the morning, or really worn a brassiere in months, but I still get up and try to put on something just to make me feel. I've started painting my nails. I bought all these discontinued Crayola shades off eBay, it's very girlhood. In fact, maybe I should grab a few to show you since it's connected to what we're doing here. [Shows selection of MANY nail polishes]. A: Whoa. G: I got into a place where I needed color. It was like a Nella Larsen moment. Like Helga Crane. A dream of leisure time, and play, and dress up and femininity and trying things on, and color that's about trying to be a girl, not even trying to be a woman, but something about what girls are supposed to do, oh you paint your nails, you play. To me these polishes are instruments of play. And they're also connected to writing because I'm writing a new thing, and while typing, I wanted to be able to look at my fingers and see certain colors to help me get to a certain mode or pitch. A: How often do you paint your nails? How do you orchestrate the influence of a certain color on your creative process? Do you think ahead a lot or is it improvisational? G: It's more improvisational. And this is unusual that I'm only wearing one color [holds up hands, wearing hot pink nail polish]. Usually I have at least two, so there will be at least three nails one...
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