YAYA BOX HISTORY CHAPTER 5

YAYA BOX HISTORY CHAPTER 5

V. The Shift Toward Process

M and her daughter had moved back to Indiana from California in June 1992. M was the first person I thought of for the process — our friendship, dating back to 1983, had always been rooted in introspection and self‑discovery. But in April 1993, she returned to California. At first, we planned to continue her box long‑distance, but as time passed, that seemed less realistic.

It became clear that this project was far more about process than anything I had previously created. Since my undergraduate years, the tension between process and product has been a central question in my work. In the YaYa Box Project, the process felt overwhelmingly more important.

Women have lived for centuries within a dominant patriarchal structure — bound to external time constructs, values not their own, and systems that require the surrender of power. I wanted this project to unfold naturally, following its own rhythm, guided from within rather than imposed from outside.