Artists Nancy Brooks Brody and Carrie Yamaoko assemble the fierce pussy installation.

With the flu season upon us, dear old UHS has been constantly urging Harvard students to wash wash wash our hands. But the next time you want to de-germify, head over to the bathrooms in the Carpenter Center or the Sackler Museum where you’ll get not only a dollop of soap but the chance to experience powerful activist art works.  fierce pussy, an artist collective focusing “around lesbian identity and visibility”  has transformed sets of Harvard bathrooms into installation pieces. Formed in New York City during the early 1990’s, fierce pussy has used wheat pasting, a type of postering technique, and text as their chosen medium to reclaim derogatory words used towards lesbian women.

We dropped by the exhibit while the some of the group’s founding members, Joy Episalla, Carrie Yamaoko, Zoe Leonard, and Nancy Brooks Brody, were in the process of gluing posters along the bathroom walls. They Harvard students were also involved in the construction through out the day. With our formal art background consisting of only elementary school paint fights, the application processed seemed a little random. However, these awesome women freed us from our ignorance and showed us how the different layers of the paper was representative of the different layers of identity and sexuality within individuals.

Keep reading to find out more about this work.

By including the words “And I Am Proud” at the bottom every poster, fierce pussy aims to “reclaim the derogatory language used towards lesbian women.” Similarly, the posters in the men’s bathroom end with the words “And So are You” seek to “bring them into the conversation.”

the finished product.

The next day we stopped by the bathroom to take a look at the completed work. Posters run across the walls with effortless continuity. Remembering how that guy in section just couldn’t stop sneezing, we decided to quickly give our hands the ole scrub scrub. A quick glance into the mirror became a longer one as our face was juxtaposed against such harsh words. Although the Carpenter Center and the Sackler are bit further out than the soap dispenser in the Science Center, it’s definitely worth the walk to check out this collaboration between Harvard students and professional artists.