The Golden Gate: Installation of Soft Sculpture and Video

All of our lives are connected by the vagina, or “The Gate”. The vagina is the most important part of a woman’s life. It defines her identity, her gender, her roles, and therefore, it also defines the people around her.

We pass through our mother’s gate, so the sculpture should be thought of as Mother Nature. When I was pregnant with my daughter Dahlia, I felt like I had my own universe growing inside of me. When I heard my baby’s heartbeat, I felt like the stars, the planets, nebulas, moons, the sun and entire galaxies were alive and flowing through me. That they were mine, that I was going to give birth to them. Seeing the fetus move inside my body was like watching the Earth move among a thousand galaxies.

World history and the present time shows us that just as great people, great leaders, can come through the gate, so too can evil people. They all lived inside their mother’s womb. They all passed through the gate and changed human history. So the vagina is an important gate in our world, it binds us together. It is powerful and valuable. It is golden. It is The Golden Gate.

Nge Lay
December 2016
Myanm/art