Paige Berkovitz

For the ritual project, Paige came in to class twiddling rubber balloons between her fingers. At first glance, a fellow classmate inquiried what she was doing to which Paige exclaimed, "I just really love how rubber feels!" Obviously, confusion was felt by the classmate. Throughout the class, Paige continued twirling a bunch of balloons, even though most of the class didn't realize. Eventually, as the class progressed, she began taping the balloons to the wall. The balloons had writing on them such as, "You can't stop!," and "I <3 Rubber!" As the class continued and others presented projects Paige began popping balloons slowly, one after the other.--Eventually, almost of the balloons were popped with the exception of a few; specifically, the ones which expressed that there was no end to the rubber fetish.
The ritual Paige was inacting was that of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. She explained that she had worked with a child in a psychology research lab that was obsessed with rubber, compulsively playing with it to the point of being bribed with rubber to participate in activities. The balloons represented the obsessive thoughts while the twiddling during the class displayed the manifestation of those thoughts, the compulsions. The popping of the balloons was meant to depict an effort to overcome the OCD. In the end though, the never ending concept of the ritual was displayed in the notion that there were still balloons (or obsessions) that were inflated, very much so alive.