Shana Moulton

Using video, sculptural installation and performance Shana Moulton has developed a distinctive aesthetic realm anchored around her alter ego, Cynthia. Collectively titled Whispering Pines – a name taken from the mobile home park for senior citizens that her parents ran – these episodic videos, begun in 2002, chart Cynthia’s personal trials and tribulations. They reflect on the relationship between consumerism and a search for meaning.

Moulton addresses themes of new age spirituality, the personal wellness industry and ecological protest with off-kilter humour and disarming sincerity. The video MindPlace ThoughtStream (2014) begins with Cynthia plugging into the MindPlace Thoughtstream Biofeedback System, a real product, to measure her body's functions through sound and light. Cynthia’s journey then includes magical gloves that make objects wiggle and a dance routine to an Activia-brand yogurt commercial.

In September 2019 Moulton presented her first institutional solo show in the UK at the Zabludowicz Collection. Newly commissioned videos and sculptural installations commissioned in were presented alongside key recent projects, linked together by a reflection on feminist spirituality and tales of women trapped in towers. The exhibition concluded with the installation Whispering Pines ∞ (2018) in which Moulton, in collaboration with musician Nick Hallett, has extended Cynthia’s adventures into something operatic in scope. Lush and magical song cycles transport viewers upwards, offering a glimpse of new horizons beyond Cynthia’s domestic confines.