Interiority, Metamorphosis, and Simone Leigh’s Hybrid Cowries

Abstract

By way of an analysis of Simone Leigh’s You Don’t Know Where Her Mouth Has Been (2017), this essay argues that by hybridizing the cowrie and watermelon, Leigh creates her own natural history of these biological forms that disorders the rigid taxonomic classification on which systems of discrimination rely. The resulting hybrid cowrie not only defies classification, it also forms a folded architecture that facilitates a Deleuzian reading. The hybrid cowries, by way of their capacious construction and narrow slits, evoke an interiority that enables metamorphosis. By way of the analysis of the works of Cupboard (2014) and Cowrie (Pannier) (2015), the essay further investigates architectural forms. It considers the intricate interactions between the hybrid architecture of natural forms, such as cowries and watermelons, and human-fabricated forms, such as teleuks and crinolines.