Harmony Hammond, Hug, 1978

Narrator: Imagine these two ladder-like forms as if they were human bodies. How would you describe them? You might say that the little one leans on the large one, or that the larger one supports the smaller. You might describe them as being nestled together. A lot of the descriptions you might come up with would make the sculpture sound sort of...snuggly. And this is one reaction the artist wanted us to have to the work, which she titled Hug. Without representing bodies, she tried to give us the feeling of a body’s weight and touch. 

Hammond made this work early in the feminist movement, when women were fighting for equality and looking for new ways to express themselves—ways that weren’t defined by men. For Hammond, trying to communicate bodily experience without actually picturing bodies was one way to do that.