A little more than two years after the US Supreme Court overturned the federal right to abortion, as Republican lawmakers in states across the country enact increasingly draconian restrictions on reproductive and gender-affirming healthcare, a travelling exhibition is making the case that these are fundamental rights. But the exhibition, organised by the New Jersey-based organisation Project for Empty Space, is not on a tour of regional art centres or non-profit galleries: it will travel from New York to Iowa, California, Arizona, Texas, Florida and more locales aboard a truck wrapped in bold text art by Barbara Kruger that proclaims, “Your Body is a Battleground.”
Organised by Project for Empty Space’s co-directors Jasmine Wahi and Rebecca Pauline Jampol, BODY FREEDOM FOR EVERY(BODY) launched its national tour on Wednesday (4 September) in Times Square, in partnership with Times Square Arts. And while certain works—by Ana Mendieta, Andrea Bowers, Demian DinéYazhi, Mickalene Thomas and others—will be permanent fixtures, one entire wall of the truck will be rotated to feature works by local artists in each city where it stops. The New York iteration includes pieces by Marilyn Minter, Chitra Ganesh, Erin Riley, Ridikkuluz and others.
Installation view of Project for Empty Space's truck-based exhibition BODY FREEDOM FOR EVERY(BODY) Photo: Carlos Hernandez
“We have more than 120 artists whose works will be on the truck,” Wahi says. “It’s very important to be inclusive on multiple fronts, not only in terms of where we’re showing but also whose work we’re showing.”
The truck’s first few stops are in places where the project’s message should find largely sympathetic audiences: after stops around New York City it will travel to Project for Empty Space’s home turf in Newark, New Jersey, then to Washington, DC. Thereafter it will venture to Iowa City, Kansas City, San Francisco and Los Angeles, Tempe in Arizona, Austin and Houston in Texas, then to Florida. In the immediate aftermath of the US presidential election, the truck will be in former president Donald Trump’s backyard in West Palm Beach (14-16 November). It will then travel to Miami during Art Basel Miami Beach (3-10 December), with further stops already in the works for 2025. Wahi adds: “It’s about talking to people and meeting them where they’re at.”
The exterior of Project for Empty Space's truck-based exhibition BODY FREEDOM FOR EVERY(BODY) featuring text art by Barbara Kruger Photo: Carlos Hernandez
The organisers have partnered with local art spaces in each city to create inroads with the local community and artists, and staff manning the truck are receiving de-escalation training to help them handle any tense situations that may arise.
“We’re not naïve, we understand that abortion, reproductive rights and bodily autonomy are issues that some people feel are contentious,” Jampol says. “It’s inevitable that there will be hard questions and conversations. We want that.”
The organisers also hope that Kruger’s three-part text-based work on the truck’s exterior will help prompt and facilitate those dialogues. “Barbara originally presented a proposal for one wall of the truck exterior, but that quickly became three,” Jampol says. “Having a work like Untitled (Your body is a battleground) on the exterior of the truck is so powerful because it can help start an intergenerational conversation among the artists and the public.”
- BODY FREEDOM FOR EVERY(BODY), various locations in New York until 8 September, future locations listed here