What do you get when you roll 18,085 bras together into a giant ball?  You get a 1,800 pound, 5 foot tall work of artistic genius known as Emily Duffy’s BraBall.

Completed in 2003, the BraBall now resides in the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore.  Duffy got the idea for the project after reading in the San Francisco Chronicle that a male artist, Nicolino, was offering to give 20,000 bras away for free to an artist or educational institution.

Nicolino had planned to string these bras across the Grand Canyon but had moved on in his artistic endeavors.  Duffy told Nicolino about her idea to use the bras to create a giant ball with personal items related to body image and breasts in the center.  Nicolino loved the idea and Duffy asked him if he wanted to collaborate on the project.  According to Duffy, Nicolino did not want to collaborate and, in the end, he told Duffy that he would create the ball of bras himself.  Duffy realized that she would have to find bras and create her BraBall as quickly as possible in order to salvage her idea.

In January of 2001, Duffy sent an email to all of her friends and family explaining the situation and asking them to send her bras for the project.  By the end of the project she had received over 18,000 bras!

In the center of the bra ball Duffy has arranged a “time capsule” containing documentation about her dispute with Nicolino, a scalpel, one of her own bras, documentation of her friend’s struggle with breast cancer, a breast cancer ribbon, a replica of the Venus of Willendorf and a broken red glass heart in a box—all a sign of struggles that she and all women have overcome.

You can read the Artist’s Statement and more about the BraBall at the BraBall website.