Megan Lucille Boettcher (she/her)
Originally from the States, Megan Lucille (1991, Minnesota) has spent the past ten years quite literally around the world, journeying toward continuously shedding her conservative upbringing and deep-rooted indoctrination through personal experiences and creative practice. Her body the nucleus of her work, Megan Lucille’s beginnings in self-portraiture video and photography have expanded into performance, installation, writing, and wearable works. Working in multifaceted creation with a variety of media, Megan Lucille’s explorations revolve around her desire to best communicate and discuss the difficult subject matters at the centre of her practice. Drawing from a reservoir of personal experiences as her catalyst, Megan Lucille challenges her own vulnerability and confronts dynamics of power by exposing traumatic (‘ugly’) histories and experiences and the intimate places their residues reside. She endeavours to transmute the ‘ugly’ into something ‘beautiful’, exploring the how of questioning through creation. Through her work, Megan Lucille seeks to enable a process of healing and encourage discussion of shared experience, fostering broader conversations around personal, communal, and societal transgressions while desiring action, from which healing and change may emerge as potential outcomes.
Recent presentations of her work include: Ashes, performed at Mischkonzern in Berlin, Germany; “Sorry, Mom. I’m airing my dirty laundry.”, a solo installation at Jiang Shang Yi Gao Suo in Hsinchu, Taiwan; her annual Christmas Eve Instagram Live performance series, currently including Dear Christmas Eve 2013: Fuck you…& thank you., and A Holiday My Time with Me: a performance; ニューNormal? New ノーマル?, Day 2 of Neighbouring as part of Glasgow International 2021; And We Walk: Of Inconsolable Memories and Crucified Pleasure, a performance of endurance, participatory event, and day-long walk of awareness throughout Glasgow, UK, in collaboration with curator Rosie Gilbertson, including an installation of Megan Lucille’s related works at The Pipe Factory (the photographic multi-series Of Paper Souls and Making Love Getting Fucked and the first iteration of Emulate the Virgin Mary); Love Sheep Goat, an ongoing performance project with friend and artist Joy Baek, most recently performed for the RCA/GSA Tête-a-tête event at Stereo in Glasgow, UK; and her most recent (forthcoming) performance series Answer: Orange, the four interconnected performances as part of this MFA Degree Show.
Having recently completed her MFA, Megan Lucille is currently based in Glasgow, deciding whether or not she will continue including her given surname (Boettcher) as part of her artist name moving forward.
xxxxx
ON LOVE
(Dedicated to my sister, Emily. Thanks for the amazing redefinition. Duly quoted x)
These words come as sleep takes
Not knowing if I will wake
Not knowing if I desire to wake
Awake in this dream
The Dream that you hate
Eyes open, Death imminent
Welcome:
Death
Dream
Apologise.
I say ‘For what?’
What did I do wrong?
Graves of Lies
Shrouds of Pride
Your shrine to Relics poisoning the font
Your Sheep gone mad
Turned, made Scapegoat
A convert you cannot reach
Entombment of your own doing
No longer kissing the hand that bites
Decorated in a glamoured righteousness
Begging for comfort against the lips it maims
Sacramental promises perfumed in penance
Amen
Lick them in silence as shadow passes
Undeserving forgiveness does not mean forget
Build Walls of fortified ash
Burn the icy corpse drowning in milk and honey
I dance with the Devil on your back
We like to fuck
A Sacrilegious Ecstacy
unconditional love
/ˌʌnkənˈdɪʃənl/ /lʌv/
noun
an excuse for manipulation
Loss craved but nails drive deep
Clinging
Weighing
Puncturing Prey with wounds of your God
Threatening to parade an unholy eternity
Laundry never washed in the Sun, only Feet
The Masquerade of the Holy:
A Puppeteer’s Crusade
Bury the Witch
Welcome the Prodigal Son
But on your terms
Always on your terms
You want me to apologise
‘For what?’ I say
‘What did I do wrong?’
Nothing
Everything
And isn’t it great?
Performance Series
The (Im)maculate (30/45)
The (Im)Maculate (31/45)
The (Im)maculate (32/45)
The Half-formed (2/5)
The Half-formed (4/5)
The Score
Answer: Orange
Experimenting in a variety of performance styles, Answer: Orange, a performance series by Megan Lucille Boettcher is a performance series that evokes the themes, journey, and exploration of (best) conveying experience through the ‘how’ of creative practice. An exploration of power dynamics amidst confessional storytelling, Answer: Orange is a current culmination of my ongoing themes, confronting a reclamation of body, being, story, and space while encouraging empowerment after disempowerment due to various traumas. Personal experiences and trauma being the inspiration/catalysts for this series, these performances navigate the overtly and metaphorically (un)told traumas and the spaces their residues reside. Taking place at Florence Street School, the venue has further inspired and (positively) developed this series as it evokes the environments, structures, ideals, oppressive constructs, and indoctrination of my youth, systems from which I have worked toward de-indoctrinating myself over the past ten(+) years (and continuously continue now into my thirties). The performances set throughout the school, each experiments in a variety of accessibility, power dynamics, participation, and tones. Pushing my performance and overall multifaceted artist practice to new heights as I move into further studies/artistic opportunities post-MFA, I will be performing four different yet interconnected performances that ultimately tell a story—a journey amidst healing. The performances are as follows:
Emulate the Virgin Mary
Centered around my short film Emulate the Virgin Mary, this performance confronts religious and familial trauma and the defiance amidst healing from it. The film projected in the space, I will use my surroundings to perform the audio to the film, after which the film and (new) audio will then run as a post-performance installation for the duration of the Degree Show. This performance is a second rendition of its original installation and performance that took place during And We Walk: Of Inconsolable Memories and Crucified Pleasure, my collaboration with curator Rosie Gilbertson which discussed the reclamation of personal pleasure after sexual violence (and oppression).
PERFORMANCE DATE:
Monday, 30 May, 2022
Duration: approximately 10 minutes
Join me?
A provocative proposition, this performance questions my (perceived) role as artist/object/artwork/performer/woman and tests my personal vulnerability all while confronting the vulnerability fellow women/female presenting people, gender-nonconforming, queer people, and other vulnerable members of society face daily. If I ask you to join me, what liberties do you feel you can take? How does my position, body language, and/or nature welcome or deter the audience? I will experiment within these aspects and discover more as I undertake this performance.
PERFORMANCE DATE:
Saturday, 4 June, 2022
Duration: all day-ish
How to Divorce Your Family: A Lecture
The most confessional of the series, I will give a lecture-style performance to the audience in attendance. Making use of the building’s conference room, the lecture is open to whoever wishes to attend, audience participation standard to a lecture.
PERFORMANCE DATES:
Sunday, 5 June, 2022
2 PM and 3:30 PM start times
Duration: approximately 1 hour
Saturday, 11 June, 2022
2 PM and 3:30 PM start times
Duration: approximately 1 hour
Orange
On 30 April, I performed You’re Invited, a preamble of sorts to this performance series. A celebration of the ten-year anniversary of my family stealing my art and (more importantly) my first official act of defiance against them and their gravity (my first ‘No.’), I hosted a party at my home and even gave a speech to commemorate this event that ultimately initiated this ten-year journey. Furthering this celebration/commemoration/reclamation, I now undertake Orange: a full day performance to punctuate this performance series and stage/phase/cycle in my life. Wearing a handmade orange outfit for the day, I will just be in the exhibition. Orange is my mother’s favourite colour, and I hate it (hint: we don’t get on). But orange doesn’t deserve my hatred. So, using orange as a metaphorical reclamation of space, being, story, life, and freedom, I will spend a day in it and take up space as a woman defiant of the structures, systems, milestones, and pressures I was raised in and still confront today, systems many are pressured to uphold. Whether it be singing in the corridor, dancing amidst or (respectfully) interacting with artworks, chatting with visitors and/or asking them to take photos/videos of me, or even eating a meal, I will unapologetically be me for the day doing what I want, when I want, how I want in a costume that takes up space (maybe I’ll even begin to like—or at least better tolerate—the colour orange).
PERFORMANCE DATE:
Sunday, 12 June, 2022
Duration: all day-ish
xxxxx
Dear Viewer/Reader/Listener/Attendee/Audience Member,
What is ‘youth’? When is ‘youth’? Why do so many romanticise it? Can I have a taste of it now? Do I want a taste of it now? Because sometimes I would rather forget mine. Sometimes I can’t help but forget mine: blank spaces where memories should be. Or maybe I mourn my lack of it…sometimes.
Childhood: a crash course in Catholic indoctrination. Teens: a semi-conscious preparation for (forced) emancipation. Twenties: consumed by Survival Mode. Thirties: …?
Do I get to choose now? Do I get to live (them) now? Continuously better becoming the person I needed all these years—
No. Again:
Dear Viewer/Reader/Listener/Attendee/Audience Member,
I write to you in this/that/these/those/my (current) exploration(s) in reclaiming space | story | being | body
Historically disempowered.
Chronically discouraged.
Indoctrinated in shame.
Apologetic for taking up space.
Due to my gender, femininity, mental healthGender ✓ Femininity ✓
(perceived) Looks ✓ Mental health ✓ Socio-economic/social status ✓
Sexual orientation ✓ How I learn ✓ What I know ✓ The Catholic upbringing that poisons my bones ✓
Focused de-indoctrination can only cleanse so quickly…—
Fuck. Shut up. Again:
Dear Viewer/Reader/Listener/Attendee/Audience Member,
It is sometimes hard for me to best verbalise/talk about my work to/with you.
This time, if I may, let me show [and experience (it) (this) with] you instead.
Best regards,
Megan Lucille Boettcher
xxxxx
I hate the colour orange.
Orange is her favourite colour.
She who voiced the forced God in my head:
“Stop!” “Don’t show off.” “Don’t be cocky.”
“Emulate the Virgin Mary.”
I couldn’t even half-ass the laundry due to its power.
Due to her power.
The Mother. It was The Mother.
She is The Mother, and don’t you forget it.
Excerpt from my novel-in-progress: The Fortune Cookie
xxxxx
What if you’re actually completely different than you were raised to be?
What if you needed to dedicate years to shedding the indoctrination,
Like a snake moulting an old skin that has fangs of its own?
Just to freely choose the new raw, bloody, and bare one
That is sensitive to even the slightest breeze?
Your mettle yet to callus?
Alone?
. . .
Would you do it?
xxxxx
For 2012 in a basement gallery
Creation stolen and the first ‘No.’
For that scooter accident and the generous stranger
Inaccessible emotions and numbness to Death
For that beautiful retaliation and memorable flight
Decisions made and time to heal
For October 13th toward final goodbyes
Steaming skin and the Hibiscus witnessed
For my attractive mouth in a penniless solitude
That note and €300 left on the bed
For finally pressing charges and drawing lines
And that accidental mountain climb
For that hole so many desire(d) to make my cage
For The Cave I navigate(d) and confront(ed)
For the invitation of discovery in the humid jungle
And running toward instead of from
For those nights under the moon, words spoken to the wind
For that (com)passion for wasted potential
For the rejection of ‘family’ and the forgotten childhood
And the small reminders it still exists
For Then, For Now
For Lilith, For Eve
For Everyone(thing) discovered and yet to be
Loved, Protected
And smiles (finally) experienced
xxxxx
You’re family isn’t done f***ing you up.
Not by a long shot.
My (apt) fortune cookie from 2012