Underground

Each year, more women undergo treatment at hospital emergency surgical services as a result of family violence than rapes, muggings, and car wrecks combined. This startling statistic is the basis for a series of site-specific installations on domestic violence, On The Edge Of Time. Underground, the first installation for the Pittsburgh Three Rivers Art Festival, used three wrecked cars strewn along a 180-foot section of railroad track to reference the history of Abolition and the Underground Railroad, and as metaphors for different aspects of abuse. After visitors experienced the installation, a phonebooth awaited, where responses could be recorded in privacy on an answering machine. These comments form the voiceover, as it were, of the piece. Underground is a remarkable document of Lacy’s temporary installation and its 500,000 visitors, and a moving testament to the power of art to effect individual and social change.