ESVMID

ESVMID, 2015. Inkjet prints, digital C-prints, Kartell Crystal Ghost Stool, walrus penis bone, chair mat, ink, website.

ESVMID is a networked art project in two parts. The first part is an online speculative archive that catalogues visualizations of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s lost ivory dildo. The speculative archive will contain over 30 visualizations of ESVM’s ivory dildo images that reference the sexual organs of old lovers, hyena clitori, the mother as phallus.

The second part, which remains unrealized, consists of a client application which allows consumers/collectors/visitors to purchase an interpretive replication of ESVM’s lost ivory dildo carved from what is considered ‘legal ivory’. Mammoth tusks, hippo teeth, antique documented pre-ban elephant tusks, as well as Sperm whale teeth.

If a willing collaborator can be found, the process will function as follows: legally certified carvers, based in Canada, will receive an on-line order from a visitor; after the payment is processed, the carver will produce her version of ESVM’s lost dildo. Despite the use of ‘legal ivory’ the carving may be confiscated by customs. The laws and the application of the laws are unstable. The unstable objects, purchased but unclaimed, will stay in Canada, until the purchaser and the carver determine together how the object shall travel: will they risk shipping the ivory dildo through international boundaries? Will the client travel to Canada and smuggle it within her/his own body?