An immersive installation of 288 square feet of crimson skirts paired with curated objects and text from the Rosenbach Museum & Library's collections, drawn from research into British social mores and the construction of female desire in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Here Dirty Brown, Dark Red, and Yellow Hair, Are Bleach'd, to Colours that are Fine and Fair,

Then Blended so, that half the Whores in Town, Contribute to adorn one Addl'd Crown.

Red Maids is an immersive installation that envelops viewers in a saturated field of red. Suspended overhead are 288 square feet of crimson skirts, arranged in tight, interlocking folds that form a dense canopy, evoking the experience of standing beneath an enormous rose. As visitors move through the space, they are invited — playfully yet provocatively — to look up beneath the skirts. Embroidered in gold thread along the hems are words from an early 18th-century couplet referencing the brutal practice of killing prostitutes to harvest hair for the British wig industry.

Commissioned by the Rosenbach Museum & Library for the 2001 exhibition BANG! Contemporary Artists Collide with the Collections, Red Maids grew directly out of Teresa's two years of research in the Rosenbach's rare books and decorative arts collections. Drawing from the collections, she paired texts with objects, organizing them under the themes of courtship, seduction, and abandonment. The artifacts were displayed beneath the skirts in museum cases around the perimeter. Each object had a numbered pin that corresponded with text in a take-away pamphlet. Like the couplet itself, each pairing combined text and object to create a fictional unit. Through these pairings, in conjunction with an imposing canopy of skirts overhead, Teresa created commentary on British social mores and the ways cultural constructions of female desire shaped women's lives in the 18th and 19th centuries. Provocative in concept, the installation is also frequently humorous, grounding difficult history in lived experience and material evidence.