Museum Town

“Doubled, I walk the street. Though we are no longer in the commanders’ compound, there are large houses here also. In front of one of them the a guardian is mowing the lawn. The lawns are tidy, the facades are gracious, in good repair; they’re like the beautiful pictures they used to print in the magazines about homes and gardens and interior decoration. There is the same absence of people, the same air of being asleep. The street is almost like a museum, or a street in a model town constructed to show the way people used to live. As in those pictures, those museums, those model towns, there are no children.” pg.23

My artwork, Museum Town, is a visual representation of Offred on a shopping walk in the old university town. As they walk, Offred talks about the town and has a flashback of when she and Luke used to walk in the town. This piece captures the emotional landscape of a character navigating a world that has been radically altered by authoritarian control.

For the artwork, I draw it as if it were in a museum. There aren’t too many people in the artwork because Offred states, “there is the same absence of people, in the same air of being asleep.” The absence of people suggests a physical emptiness; streets that were once lively are now eerily deserted. The town is not actually deserted; the people there aren’t truly alive, they’re silenced, surveilled, stripped of individuality. The lawns are tidy, so all of the lawns in the towns are done, but the one that the Guardian is mowing isn’t done. “The lawns are tidy, the facades are gracious, in good repair; they’re like the beautiful pictures they used to print in the magazines about homes and gardens, and interior decorations. The descriptions of the homes and buildings in the town are told almost as if Offred were in a simulation. I think that it’s told in this way because it shows that she really has no control throughout the story.

“ Doctors lived here once, lawyers, university professors. There are no lawyers anymore, and the university is closed.”

The figures walking in the dresses represent Offred herself; she finds herself caught between two worlds. Her presence in the artwork is almost ghostlike, to reflect the internal nature of her journey. She is physically present in the town, but mentally and emotionally tethered to the past. Offred, who is present in the town is walking with he head down because the town is depressing to her as she states, “ The street is almost like a museum, or a street in a model town constructed to show the way people used to live. As in those pictures, those museums, those model towns, there are no children.” she compares the street to a museum, a place where the past is preserved but no longer lived, museum are lifeless. The absence of children is the most haunting detail; their absence suggests a broken society, one that cannot sustain life.

“Luke and I used to walk together, sometimes, along these streets. We used to talk about buying a house like one of these, an old big house, fixing it up. We would have a garden, swings for the children. We would have children.”

The person next to Offred in the artwork is herself; the one walking normally with a smile on her face is the past Offred. This shows the difference between the past and present of Offred. Past Offred was happy because in the past she had dreamed of buying one of these homes with Luke and having kids and living the dream life, but the present her is upset because of the way life turned out for her. She has no children, no Luke.

Ultimately, Museum Town is a representation of the present and the past combined with different emotions from Offred, navigating a world that has been radically altered by authorized control. Changing the once good town to more of a museum town, lifeless to the people that live in it.