Opening: 18 Mar 2022, 6–9 pm
Reading by Hanne Lippard: 18 Mar 2022, 7 pm

The Myths and Realities of Achieving Financial Independence (2013) is a sound installation by artist Hanne Lippard that playfully investigates the nondescript character of she in the well-known English tongue twister, “She sells seashells on the seashore…” By repeating it again and again, making mistakes, and diverting from the original text, Lippard attempts to approach herself to this mysterious she.

Who is she? Why does she sell seashells – on the seashore?

Throughout the narrative, reality blurs with fiction, shells turn into soaps, and heaven becomes a place “above sea level” whereas the protagonist’s pay is unfortunately “far beneath sea level”. In the end, she fossilizes into a seashell.

Deploying a  mischievous and yet precise examination of language, its potentialities, and mysteries, Lippard turns the tongue-twister into an absurd and, sadly, realistic narrative for many shes. Ideas and dreams about financial independence evolve into a downward spiral of foreclosed options – and end in despair. 

The inspiration for this tongue-twister, which first was a song, is thought to be Englishwoman Mary Anning, a real seashell seller who also collected fossils and contributed important information about prehistoric life to the scientific community. Anning came from a working-class background and supported herself selling fossils to geologists and to tourists along the shore.

Whereas it remains unclear what became of the semi-fictional folkloric figure of Anning, Lippard’s she ultimately ends up selling her seashell to the owner of the sea shore. 
As is typical in Lippard’s work, The Myths and Realities of Achieving Financial Independence critically employs language to make legible prevailing social and linguistic conditions and phenomena, never without an underlying spirit of feminist intervention.

Supported by the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Berlin.