Virginia L. Montgomery (VLM) is an award-winning experimental filmmaker and multimedia artist working across video, performance, sound design, and sculpture. She received her MFA from Yale University and her BFA from The University of Texas at Austin.

VLM is known for her surreal, synthesia-esque artworks, which unite elements from mysticism, science, and her own neurodivergent world. Her artworks are hopeful, sensorial, and symbolic. Influenced by the ecofeminist writings of Dr. Donna Haraway, her artworks shift in subject matter from moths to machines, as VLM deploys an idiosyncratic visual vocabulary of repeating gestures and recursive symbols like circles, holes, and spheres.

VLM's "Vestal Virgin Vengeance" at Austin’s Ivester Contemporary is a capsule collection of new video work and photographic prints inspired by the Vestal Virgins, a pagan sect of protective high priestesses from ancient Rome, and the contentious state of women's healthcare in Texas.

Interview by Tyler Nesler

The Vestal Virgins, a pagan sect of protective high priestesses from ancient Rome, directly inspired your "Vestal Virgin Vengeance" solo show. Could you provide some background on the significance of the Vestal Virgins in ancient Roman society and what particular elements of their lives and social powers you're using to comment on the current dire state of women's healthcare in Texas and the US?

During times of contemporary crisis, I believe it helpful to study the past and to see what we can learn from making connections between antiquity and the present. For my exhibition, “Vestal Virgin Vengeance,” I took inspiration from an enigmatic all-woman pagan cult from 2nd century Rome: the Vestal Virgins, to meditate upon the continued patriarchal influence of women's lives in Texas today.

I created this body of artwork in honor of Josseli Barnica and Nevaeh Crain, two Texan women who lost their lives this year due to miscarriage complications that might’ve been prevented with better healthcare legislation. As I began this project, I asked myself, "What could we Texan women learn from conjuring the protective femme energies of pagan high priestesses?" That line of metaphysical inquiry led me to researching the Vestal Virgins, as a way to find inspiration for self-sovereignty and to motivate myself and my fellow Texan women to continue to fight for women's rights in this caustic political climate.

What I discovered from my research into ancient femme self-sovereignty, is that the Vestal Virgins were high-priestesses who uniquely held many rights and liberties, during a time in ancient Rome when very few women held any agency at all. The Vestal Virgins' primary role was to serve the goddess Vesta, a feminine deity who ruled over the hearth, home, and family, and to tend to the ever-burning flames within Vesta's sacred temples.

Because of this, the Vestal Virgins were among the most respected women in ancient Rome. The Vestal Virgins could own land, draft legal contracts, testify in the court, and participate in all levels of Roman society, like attending the theatre, watching gladiator battles, or partaking in social activities that otherwise barred women. The Vestals were lawfully personae sui iuris – "sovereign over themselves."

However, to gain this sovereign status, it came at a cost: a Vestal had to take a vow of chastity for 30 years that, if broken, would be punishable by death. Learning this made me think, "Why can't women just be free to make their own choices? Why is there always a catch? What's a better fate: to be a Vestal Virgin in 2nd c. Rome who has some rights, but lacks full rights, or to be a woman in 21st c. Texas who has some rights, but who also still lacks full rights?" By studying the past I gained perspective on the present. The present loss of women's healthcare rights in Texas should be a warning sign for the rest of the USA of what could come. We all need to stay informed and work on a grass-roots level to protect women's rights.

The exhibition features two unique videos. One, "Vestal Virgin Vengeance," was shot en plein aire on a miniature prop-set outfitted with cut-out imagery of the famed 19th c. sculpture of a veiled Vestal by Raffaele Monti, your own power drill, and a gallon of honey. What was your conceptual approach to organizing these elements to create a symbolic synthesis of meaning?

My artworks utilize a recurring symbolic lexicon. In my video artworks, the presence of the drill symbolizes disruption and destruction. And the presence of honey symbolizes hope and healing. While all of my video artworks take inspiration from topical themes and research, like the Vestal Virgins or Monti’s idealized sculptural representation of women, the output of this labor is always surreal in nature. I organize my projects to each embody certain elements, like destruction and healing, through a material vocabulary so that the experiential effect of the work is always bodily. I believe that art's power occurs in an embodied truth, that one accesses when the realm of physical experience intersects with symbolic synthesis.

VESTAL VIRGIN VENGEANCE

The other video, "Beyond the Veil," features one of your Luna moth collaborators interacting with the Vestal Virgin sculpture in some quite striking ways. For example, the moth eventually settles atop the Virgin's head with wings spread in a very veil-like manner. Then, the moth is presented with a miniature Vestal Virgin sculpture on a tiny stool, which it also interacts with. Could you discuss some of the thematic imagery you were going for in this piece?

In terms of visual devices, much of my artwork over the past few years has dealt with the concept of scale-shift and play, for example, the macro vs. the micro in relation to the absurdity of the material world. To explore this idea in my videos, I will either hand-build miniature props out of wood and epoxy or 3D print miniature props from everyday items and then present them to the Luna moths. (As a side note, for the past five years, I've been actively raising and filming Luna moths as a part of my art practice.)

I specifically enjoy working with Luna moths because they are both ethereally beautiful animals and because they are comically ambivalent to anything "artsy" that I present to them, including a miniature 1-inch version of the famed "Veiled Vestal" sculpture by Raffaele Monti. For this project, my interest in Raffaelo Moniti's "Veiled Vestal" sculpture is partly because of its thematic resonance with my greater interest in the Vestal Virgins as subjects but also because it is a sculpture that historically carries such a strong presence of the "male gaze." In the video, the Luna moths ambivalently climb on the sculpture and then just fly off-screen. I find it quite funny how disinterested the Luna moths are in the "male gaze."

BEYOND THE VEIL

Opening night for "Vestal Virgin Vengeance"

With both videos, were there any logistical hurdles you had to solve to attain the visual tone and symbolic narrative you wanted? How planned out versus spontaneous were the videos, and were there any production surprises that took the works in unexpected directions?

Because my videos are physical projects that are filmed with a real camera documenting real materials reacting spontaneously in the real world, there is always a massive amount of on-the-fly experimentation that I do in my filming practice. This happens because I can't plan for everything. Chaos happens. When I'm behind the camera with sticky honey fingers and my Luna moth protagonist flying out the window, I am reminded that I am never incomplete control. Ever! So when I am filming footage, a million different things go wrong, or go right. And, I think this is also why my video artworks feel like they are magic.

My videos represent once-in-a-lifetime moments that I could never plan out, but instead just magically unfold before me, like filming a perfect bubble of honey popping or a Luna moth suddenly flying into the perfect spot, in focus and in frame. I will admit, though, that in order to capture these magical moments, it means that I spend many hours behind my camera waiting for something wondrous to appear. My specific video art practice requires a lot of deep patience to make space for the universe to surprise me organically.

In our November 2023 interview, you discussed your intricate approach to sound design by assembling many field recordings of both natural and artificial sounds, and often, your Luna moths create sounds with a miniature, table-top sound studio. For these videos, did you introduce any new sounds to the track or take any particularly different approach to creating the overall soundscapes?

My soundscape practice is one where I weave together dozens of field recordings to create a densely layered arrangement of everyday soft sounds intermixed with synth pads and foley effects. Because this video project heavily featured a Dewalt drill, the fricative sound profile of the plays a dominant role. The Luna moths contributed some very subtle sounds of beating wings.

My process of sound design is very intuitive and, for better or worse, I always follow a similar practice of just letting my hearing-sound synesthesia guide where the sounds will erupt in relation to the moment on screen. For this project, I did try to carefully strike a balance between making a video that emotively embodied sounds of anguish with sound of healing. In the dream-logic of the video's soundscape, the harsh whirl of my Dewalt power drill sonically embodies anguish, yet the soft cracks of flowing sands, pops of honey bubbles, and distant chimes of water droplets represent themes of hope and healing.

The artworks on display include six framed photographs. Are these stills from the videos, or separate shots taken during the production of the videos, or a combination?

Adjacent to the videos, I have a collection of photographs that were taken during my filming process. (I work with a Sony a7 r camera that can shoot in both modalities: video and still.) I like to provide images for viewers to spend time with and to study the details within the images. If anything, I always hope my artworks cultivate a quality of mindfulness and give one the ability to make new connections between different ideas.

"Vestal Virgin Vengeance" is on display through January 11 at Ivester Contemporary in Austin, TX.

Did you like what you read here? Please support our aim of providing diverse, independent, and in-depth coverage of arts, culture, and activism.

Tyler Nesler is a New York City-based writer and the Founder and Editorial Director of INTERLOCUTOR Magazine.