The Gloria of Your Imagination

Jennifer Reeves’s dual-projection performance continues her cinematic investigation into psychiatry and psychology by way of a nuanced portrait of the eponymous thirty-year-old waitress and single mother who served as the case study in the 16mm educational film Three Approaches to Psychotherapy (1965). Reeves layers Gloria Szymanski’s sessions with three prominent psychologists through mid-century industrial films, newsreels, and home movies evoking Gloria’s life leading up to the sessions, as well as her later reflections and spiritual journey. Immersing the audience in what Reeves describes as “that unabashed patriarchal, nationalistic era which many US conservatives are working tirelessly to recreate,” the work is both a time capsule and a timely warning.