MOTHER OF INVENTION

2002

Mother of Invention—Sex Toys for the New Millennium was an exhibition and event exploring sexuality through art, performance, and design, foregrounding pleasure as a site of creative production and cultural critique. Bringing together a diverse range of works, from handcrafted objects to live performance (and performance artifacts) to a vagina cake, the exhibition activated humour, spectacle, and participation to open dialogue around desire and taboo. As a lively social event, incorporating performance, spoken word, and interactive elements, the presentations blurred the boundaries between artwork and audience, private experience and public encounter.

Included in the exhibition was She’s a Tease, a sculptural whip made from handspun human hair. By reconfiguring hair, often coded as an object of attraction, into a tool traditionally associated with dominance, the piece reverses the power dynamics embedded in derogatory constructions of female sexuality. 

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The archival materials presented here date from a period prior to the widespread use of digital cameras and the internet, reflecting an earlier mode of documentation and circulation that shapes how the work is preserved and encountered today. As an early curatorial project, launched at the University of New Brunswick (UNB) Art Centre, Mother of Invention established a framework for engaging sexuality, materiality, and the body as sites of inquiry. These concerns continue to resonate throughout Hunter’s practice, extending into later works that explore biofabrication, feminist technoscience, and the politics of embodiment.