literature kathryn scanlan audrey wollens interview

The article describes a visit to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York to see two concurrent exhibitions: Sam Contis's "Phases," featuring black-and-white motion portraits and a three-channel film of teenage girls running a five-kilometer race, and Diane Simpson's "Formal Wear," a sculptural exploration of femininity's exoskeletons using industrial materials. Literary accompaniments were commissioned for both shows—Kathryn Scanlan wrote a story for Contis's exhibition, and critic Audrey Wollen contributed an essay for Simpson's—blending visual art with prose to examine themes of adolescence, identity, and self-construction.