Artist, Senga Nengudi: I was fascinated in how resilient the body was and I really wanted to somehow duplicate that experience.
Curatorial Assistant, Margarita Lizcano Hernandez: Senga Nengudi made R.S.V.P. I in 1977. The work is made out of various stretchy, nylon stockings filled with sand.
Artist, Linda Goode Bryant: It was all about Senga expressing her body and what it felt like as she was nurturing a baby inside her.
I’m Linda Goode Bryant. I’m an artist and I’m the founder of Just Above Midtown Gallery.
I had had children and I remember what that felt like when your body is being so stretched and it’s like, whose body is this?
Senga Nengudi: I also was dealing with the idea of the female psyche—that your psyche can stretch, stretch, stretch, and come back into shape. And when placing sand in the pantyhose, there was a sense of sensuality, which I also wanted to express with these pieces.
I like the idea of used pantyhose because when a woman wears pantyhose, she’s usually under extreme stress. I felt as though somehow they were infused with the energy of the woman that wore them.
Linda Goode Bryant: There was a freedom to that work that I loved—a freedom that pantyhose actually stripped you of. There was no freedom in pantyhose.