Anicka Yi: Thick Skin, Goose Bumps

Goose bumps. We might get them while listening to a recording of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream.” We might get them stepping out of a warm shower and into the cold world. We might get them while making love, or while thumbing through an old, dusty photo album when we see a lost loved one, in a photograph, for the first time in a while. We might get them listening to nails screeching across a blackboard, or when a monster appears suddenly on screen during a horror film. In other words, our skin might look like a goose’s when we are cold, scared, aroused, or in awe. The goose bump reflex as a physiological phenomenon is inherited, in humans, from our animal ancestors. Anicka Yi’s chicken skins have goose bumps. She cast ostrich skins in silicone and stretched them as if they were a canvas of sorts. The skins have goose bumps, though they are not, to my knowledge, cold nor scared.