NO LONGER FED UPON, I’D BE THE FEEDER is a thesis project marking the completion of a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design’s Graphic Design department. The video trailer above introduces the body of work, which consists of three designed books, a large-scale installation, a video projection, a written manifesto, six written affirmations with countless poster variations, a hand-sewn cloak, and a takeaway flyer.
The work examines the figure of the Female Vampire through the lens of womens’ bodily autonomy and the framework of consent. In picking apart the characteristics of Female Vampires in western literature and cinema over time, we find that what makes her a horrific figure is her control— Her sensuality, physical strength, and reproductive choices are monstrous because she uses them to her own advantage, and in her own time, excercising a control over her own body and her own future that women have historically been denied. NO LONGER FED UPON, I’D BE THE FEEDER proposes that a woman’s response to monstrosity be to become monstrous herself.
A takeaway flyer repeating the manifesto introduced in the video trailer and introducing the installation.
Close up documentation of installation. 7’ x 7’ collages of posters, process work, film stills, and cloak pattern pieces make up the walls of the ‘lair,’ and the completed fabric cloak looms over the viewer on the back wall.
Iterations of posters. Text was printed on paper, manipulated by hand using crinkling, folding, cutting, and weaving techniques, then photographed and reprinted to hang flat. The violence of the remaking implicates the body in the work.
A set of posters examine the advantages of Vampirism— could I run faster? Would I feel safer? Could I strike first?
I’d harden my skin til no one could make the mistake it was ever anyone’s but my own. I’d walk faster than they could ever hope to run, I’d be gone before they could look twice. I’d turn to mist before their eyes, under their hands, til they could never dream to pin me. I’d sharpen my teeth til they cut, the only thing that would hurt me would be of my own will. I’d walk the night alone, no need to glance over my pointed shoulder. I’d redden my eyes til those that would meet my gaze think twice.
The Feeder’s Manifesto collects three critical essays on the figure of the Female Vampire: Women and Vampires: Nightmare or Utopia? by Judith E. Johnson, Not All Fangs are Phallic: Female Film Vampires by James Craig Holte, and Women Writers and the "New Evil": The Vampires of Anne Rice and Suzy McKee Charnas by Maureen King. Each essay is annotated, bringing the reader back to the larger body of work and the focus on women’s bodily autonomy and the framework of consent.
Fangs in Film: 90 Years of Female Vampires on the Big (And Little) Screen is a collection posters for films containing Female Vampires, gathered from Wikipedia and Google searches as well as Pam Keesey’s Daughters of Darkness: Lesbian Vampire Stories filmography. The posters are annotated, examining how the Female Vampire is depicted.
The final book seeks to replicate the temporary installation in a bound collection of printed ephemera. The posters on the wall are collected in their original 11”x17” dimensions, and bound into the 11”x8.5” exhibition book, requiring the act of unfolding to reveal them in their entirety. The essays in The Feeder’s Manifesto, printed at their original 5.5”x8.5,” tuck neatly into the larger volume in three parts. Stills from the selected works in Fangs in Film are reprinted in full color on a transparent vellum, mimicking the overlay effect present in the projection component in the original installation.