GracefulPhatsheba

1993, 6:27 min, color, sound

A plastic container dangles from a string, a banana protruding from a hole in its side. To the accompaniment of Middle Eastern music, Donegan, her head wrapped in a white turban, catches the swaying banana with her mouth. Moving as if in a trance of erotic delirium, she engulfs the banana, chews at it, spits it out — until nothing is left but an empty hole. In one of her most resonant performances, Donegan exposes through artifice the fragile construction and projection of sexual fantasy in the context of gender, culture, and the act of viewing.