By Gwen Frost
In Spring quarter 2017, an anonymous Western student performed her art piece in the middle of Red Square to the encouragement and dismay of many onlookers. She spent almost three minutes screaming at pro-trump sign holder and current City Council candidate Eric Bostrom, who had yet to announce his campaign at that time. For years Bostrom has stood in Red Square and downtown Bellingham holding signs condemning gay people.
She walked back and forth screaming a wordless kind of shriek, and pulling items from her purse. Bostrom recorded part of the piece and posted it to Facebook, titling it “SCREAMING ART MAJOR GOES NUTS (ON PURPOSE) OVER TRUMP BANNER AT W.W.U. BELLINGHAM.” The video soon had thousands of hits, and almost 2,000 comments. Now months later, the AS Review sits down with the anonymous protester to get answers to our questions.
Q: What prompted you to do this piece?
A: I was struck by the violence of this man’s act, his repeated act, and the nonchalance in which it was received. His aberrant behavior was normalized. I unnormalized it. Also, I would say calling it an art piece is a reductive act in and of itself. It was not art. I would call it non-art.
Q: How long did you think about it before you did it? Was it impulsive?
A: It was not impulsive. I thought about it, years, cosmic bric-a-brac…
Q: What exactly happened, in your account?
A: The best thing in the world. In the words of Schopenhauer: “Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.”
Q: I’m sure you’ve seen the video Bostrom posted on his facebook that ended up having over 335,000 views. Did you expect someone to tape it and to possibly have a viral reaction?
A: No. I figured, at best, someone might shoot a little video from the sideline and it’d get a handful of views. I didn’t expect wass-his-name…I didn’t expect him to be such an excellent filmographer. And to be honest, I didn’t expect such an invasion of privacy as pursuant to the Washington state statute RCW 42.56.050, but, whatever.
Q: How did having it be filmed affect the project itself, in your opinion?
A: That’s a good question. I was committed nonetheless, but I guess all of a sudden knowing that the camera was there, becoming aware of a possible series of persons viewing my pain and soul cry, prompted me to commit at an even deeper level. I’ll have to think about that some more.
Q: If you could summarize the art piece in 10 words or less, what would you say?
A: I would use Dwayne Michael Carter’s words (to be a tad bit funny, yes, but also to be precise), “tell that bitch give me my space like telescope.”
Q: What kind of response did you receive online?
A: Oh horrible, horrible responses. The worst. I was threatened on numerous occasions. It was said I should be raped or lynched, along with calls to action for people to find where I live. Oh yeah, and to find me and shoot me, etc.
Q: Were you worried that people might think there was some danger, or that you were in harm’s way by screaming?
A: I wasn’t worried.
Q: What did the thing you were smashing symbolize to you?
A: That was cocoa butter. I was just pulling things out of my purse. I keep a small stick of cocoa butter to moisturize my lips and sometimes under my eyes.
Q: Eric Bostrom won 18 percent of the county’s vote in the most recent city hall election. What do you make of this?
A: I don’t know, fuck everything.
Q: If you could say one thing to Bostrom, what would it be?
A: Stop following me.
[Photo: The student poses in Red Square, Oct. 19. Hailey Hoffman // AS Review]