Object Feature: Michele Pred “Pro-Choice” Bag

Michele Pred is a Swedish-American conceptual artist whose practice includes sculpture, assemblage, and performance. Her work uncovers the cultural and political meaning behind everyday objects, with a concentration on feminist themes such as equal pay, reproductive rights, and personal security.

The Feminist Institute is thrilled to be raffling off Pred’s Pro-Choice bag in our TFI GXRLCRUSH Benefit Raffle. Each piece in Pred’s “The Power of the Purse” series is unique and made with individually-sourced vintage purses and she only creates 10 purses with each word or phrase.

Pred chooses purses as her canvas as a way to marry the powerful, politically-charged language of today’s resistance with representations of women’s modern economic power and the possibilities for change that come with it. For Pred, the use of purses from the mid-twentieth century also calls back to that critical era in the women’s movement and reminds us how much power we have to effect meaningful change.

The purses are meant to be carried and serve as small-scale political billboards. The text on each purse is created using an electroluminescent wire that is lit up using batteries and a small electronic driver that can be set to constant or flash mode.

Supreme Court Justice, Sonia Sotomayor has said that “Ms. Pred’s work is an important offering for its relevance to the times.” Additionally, Pred’s purses have been carried on the red carpet at the Oscars, and have been featured in Vanity Fair Magazine, Style Magazine, The Financial Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Hollywood Reporter, Vogue.com, and MsMagazine.com.

All images courtesy of Michele Pred.

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